White and Dean

In 1656 Nicholas White laid his case before the General Court. In 1647 he had bought twenty acres at Uncaty, now Milton; ousted by Mr. Hutchinson, he was "forced to hire his own again," which "occasioned his sudden poverty," and at last he had to "forsake his own with his wife and five small children, to seek subsistence far remote; and in his absence the house burned, fence razed." The court's committee found that he "hath had much wrong and damage," but left him to seek redress at law. By 1655 he had a new home at Taunton, near Scaddings Pond. He was an early owner in the Taunton iron works, whose books have iron "delivered to Nicholas White, Sr., to carry through the wilderness, 32 miles," and in the saw mill on Mill River, whose owners the neighbours sued in 1666 for "hindering the fish"; and with his son Nicholas and his son-in-law Samuel Hall he was a partner in the North Purchase of 1668 and the South Purchase of 1672, the lands that are now Easton, Mansfield and Dighton, with parts of Norton and Berkley. His wife Susanna was a daughter of Jonas Humphrey, a tanner from Wendover, Buckinghamshire, where it is said he was the constable, who was at Dorchester by 1634; his tan pits there were worked "by six generat. of most worthy descend."

Their son Nicholas married Ursula Macomber of Marshfield on 9 Dec 1673. She was probably a daughter of William Macomber, a cooper "of Dorchester" who in 1638 was licensed to live in Plymouth Colony "vpon the testymony of his good behauio' hee hath brought w[ith] him," and who in 1644, at Duxbury, was bound to answer for "word[s] spoken against the natiues, tending to the breach of the league betwixt us." In King Philip's War Nicholas's brother Joseph, by family account, was wounded in the Swamp Fight, and in the summer of 1677 a Nicholas White of Taunton, father or son, was fined thirty pounds for selling liquor to the Indians. Nicholas was a selectman of Taunton for four years, and in 1699 he administered his father's estate, with its "One share in the old iron works." He died at Norton on 18 Jan 1727/8, "the Eldest." His inventory came to £1553, among it "a sword at Thomas White's and a gun at widow Mary Hall's," and his executor spent "Two days in going to Marshfield to pay debt due to Thomas Macomber."

Walter Dean, a tanner, came from Chard, Somerset, with his elder brother John. He was one of the first purchasers of Taunton, its deputy to the Plymouth Court in 1640 and a deacon, and he always signed himself "Deane." When the Cape towns invited the people of Taunton to come to them with their goods for safety in King Philip's War, he was one of those appointed to decline and return thanks for their kindness, and in June 1676 he was one of the town's selectmen. His wife Eleanor was, by tradition, a sister of Elder John Strong, whom he called his "brother." Benjamin Dean, probably his son, married Sarah Williams in 1681, and their daughter Damaris was born at Taunton on 4 Sept 1689. Nicholas White's son Matthew, born at Taunton in 1676, married her, probably in 1715, after a first marriage to Susanna Hall, and they lived in the North Precinct of Norton, the part that later became Mansfield, where Mary was born on 5 Dec 1720. Matthew died before 1731, and on 29 Apr that year Damaris married Benjamin Tree of Attleborough and went there with him; Mary, it seems, went too. In 1741 she married Capt. Daniel Read of Attleborough. Their eleven children were born between 1742 and 1764, and the second, Hannah, married Ebenezer Tyler in 1762. Mary died on 23 Sept 1775, within eleven days of her sons David and Ezra; Damaris outlived her, and died, probably in 1780, in her 92nd year.

The line at a glance

The Whites: Jonas Humphrey (d. 1662), tanner, of Wendover and Dorchester > Susanna Humphrey = Nicholas White (d. 1697), of Dorchester and Taunton > Nicholas White (d. 1727/8) = Ursula Macomber, daughter of William Macomber (c. 1610-bef. 1670), cooper, of Marshfield > Matthew White (1676-bef. 1731) = Damaris Dean > Mary White (1720-1775) = Capt. Daniel Read (c. 1716-1801).

The Deans: Walter Dean (d. aft. 1693), tanner, of Chard and Taunton > Benjamin Dean (d. by 1725) = Sarah Williams > Damaris Dean (1689-1780) = Matthew White, above.

The scope walks every ancestor of Mary White. Her husband's side is the Read and Peck line, which stops at her.

How sure it is

Mary's own place is documented. The Norton births give "Mary, ch. Mathew and Dameras, Dec. 5, 1720" (Norton VR p. 157). The Taunton births give "Mathew," 25 Oct 1676, to Nicholas White, and Damaris, 4 Sept 1689, to Benjamin Dean and Sarah Williams, and the Deane memoir (1849) has "Damaris, b. Sept. 4, 1689, m. Matthew White." Matthew's mother is taken to be his father's wife from 1673, Ursula Macomber (inferred, probable). No record of Matthew's marriage to Damaris was found; Lothrop (1902) dates it 1715 (compiled, probable). Damaris's marriage to Benjamin Tree on 29 Apr 1731 is in the Norton records. Mary's marriage to Capt. Daniel Read is 2 Apr 1741 in Bailey's Early Massachusetts Marriages and 2 May 1741 in Lothrop, and the line reaches the family through her daughter Hannah, whom Lothrop lists among Daniel and Mary's eleven children, from the Attleborough records, which have not been seen (compiled, probable; see the Read and Peck line). Above them:

• Nicholas White Jr. as a son of Nicholas White (compiled, probable): Lothrop, who prints his administration of his father's estate in 1699. Susanna Humphrey as his mother (inferred, probable): she was his father's wife, and her father's will is documented: Jonas Humphrey's will of 1662 names "d. Susanna, w. of Nicholas White" (Savage's abstract).
• Ursula Macomber as William Macomber's daughter (compiled, probable): Stackpole calls it "an almost necessary inference." That her mother was his widow "Ursilla," who gave the administration bond in 1670, is possible only.
• Benjamin Dean as Walter Dean's son (compiled, probable): Savage and the Deane memoir. Walter's wife Eleanor, named only in a deed of 1693, is possible as Benjamin's mother. That she was a Strong is tradition: Gov. Caleb Strong's account of 1777 says only that a sister of Elder John Strong "afterwards m. a person by the name of Dean," and Walter calls Strong his "brother" in two deeds of 1691; Dwight's "Eleanor, daughter of Richard Strong" (1871) is his own elaboration.
• Susanna Humphrey's mother (possible): Jonas's wife Frances is on record only at the burial of their daughter Sarah at Dorchester in 1638. Her surname Coley, her marriage at Wendover in 1607 and Jonas's baptism there in 1587 come from compiled trees, not checked against the register.
• Dates from compiled works: Nicholas White Sr.'s death in 1697 (Lothrop, from his inventory of 13 July 1697); William Macomber's birth about 1610 (Stackpole, from a sworn statement of 1655 not seen); Walter Dean's birth "between 1615 and 1620" (Rev. Samuel Deane; Find a Grave's christening at Chard on 13 May 1612 is unsourced); Benjamin Dean's death between 2 Feb 1722/3 and 14 Apr 1725, the dates of his will and its probate (Savage). Damaris (Dean) Tree's death is printed "Nov. 18,
  1786. [1780. P.R.79.], in her 92d y."; only 1780 fits her birth.

The research is in Tyler and Ginn Line Research: Hannah Read Tyler's ancestry (Part One: the verdict table, items 42-49, and "White / Humphrey / Macomber / Dean"); the war years are in King Philip's War: Plymouth Colony and the Rhode Island border.

Mollie Pfeiffer's typescript (pp. 157-165) first named these families, and the records bear out Mary's birth and parents and the White marriages to Ursula Macomber and Susanna Humphrey. That Mary "lived for some reason, in Attleboro" is true too: her mother's marriage to Benjamin Tree explains it. Where it went wrong: Damaris Dean was Benjamin Dean's daughter, Walter's granddaughter, not Walter's daughter; William Macomber, who first appears in 1638 "of Dorchester," did not come on the Anne in 1623 or marry a sister of Peregrine White, whose only recorded sibling was Resolved (the White marriage belongs to a later William Macomber, who married Ruth White in 1764); and the 1644 record is a bond to appear, not a fine. Its descents of the Macombers from the Earls of Fife and of the Deans from Robert de Den, butler to Edward the Confessor, have no evidence behind them, and its Strongs of Caernarvon are tradition. Jonas Humphrey as a "glover" has not been verified. The verdicts are in Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review (section 7.3, M1-M6) and books/mollie/checked.yaml.

Open questions

• The record of Matthew White's marriage to Damaris Dean (1715, by Lothrop).
• Bristol County probate: Benjamin Dean, 1725 (does it name his daughter Damaris White?); Nicholas White, 1728.
• William Macomber's administration (1670): does it name his children? And Matthew Macomber's will (1675).
• Was Ursula Macomber's mother the widow "Ursilla" of 1670?
• Was Walter Dean's wife a Strong, and Benjamin's mother?
• Walter Dean's birth: between 1615 and 1620, or the Chard christening of 13 May 1612?
• Frances Humphrey's maiden name (Coley?): the Wendover register.
• Nicholas White Jr.'s birth, and which Nicholas White was fined in 1677.
• Sarah Williams's parents.