Benjamin Nye

Benjamin Nye came over in 1635, probably on the Abigail. With Thomas Tupper, Thomas Landers and Thomas Greenfield he was a legatee of Dennis Geere, who died on arrival; Geere's will of 10 Dec 1635, witnessed by Edmund Freeman, left him 30 shillings (Kardell). At Sandwich on 19 Oct 1640 he married Katherine Tupper.

He was a builder. With Thomas Tobey he built the frame of the Sandwich meetinghouse: "Pd. Benj. Nye and Thos. Tobey, for the frame, £12 ... Pd. Benj. Nye for 3 bu. corn, 9 s." (town account, c. 1655-59, in Freeman, History of Cape Cod 2). He built the town's mills, and on 18 Mar 1669 Sandwich voted him 12 acres "because he built the mill at the little pond" (Nye 1907). His own homestead at 85 Old County Road, East Sandwich, has timbers dated to 1678. He was constable in 1661 (PCR 3:215) and again in 1673, as "Benjamine Nye, Senir" (PCR 5). On 2 Oct 1650 he sued Thomas Dexter Jr. for trespass, claiming £10, and the jury gave him 15s and costs (PCR 7:51-52).

In 1660 word went round that he had frightened a young man into giving evidence. On 13 June William Newland told the court of a message from Elizabeth Freeman that Jacob Burgis had been "drawne to testify that which hee did conserning Barlow, by Beniamine Nye, by feare," threatened that unless he would attend Barlow "in his occations against the Quakers ... hee should not haue his daughter to wife" (PCR 3:191). The daughter was probably Mary, who married Jacob Burge. Nye sued Newland for defamation, claiming £50: "The jury found for the plaintife fifty shillings, or that the defendant bringe forth the enformer" (PCR 7:100).

On 25 Aug 1664 he and both Thomas Tuppers sat on the inquest into the death of Thomas Fish at the mill dam, killed by "the vnderminding and falling of the bankes vpon him, the wheelbarrow being between him and the ground." His father testified he "was not willing his son should goe to worke about the dam that day" (PCR 4:85).

King Philip's War. The war very probably cost Benjamin and Katherine their son Benjamin, one of the five Sandwich men killed with Capt. Michael Pierce near Pawtucket on 26 Mar 1676: "Sandwich, 5 Slain. Benjamin Nye, ..." (Rev. Noah Newman's letter of 27 March, in Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 359-360); see Benjamin Nye. When it was over, the colony's council balanced the towns' accounts of the war's charges, and Sandwich was found to owe Barnstable £73.16 "to balance the account of charges that have arisen by the late wars," paid out of "the great rate of £279.1" (Freeman, History of Cape Cod 2:71, quoting the town record). Benjamin Nye and Stephen Skiffe paid it as the town's agents, and on 2 Feb 1676/7 Barnstable gave its receipt: "Receiued of Benjamine Nye and Steuen Skiffe, agents for the towne of Sandwich, ... the sume of fifty pounds, and is in full of what is owing from this towne vnto ours vpon ballence of accompt ordered by the councell of the collonie of New Plymouth" (Records of the Colony of New Plymouth 5:233).

On 9 June 1704 he deeded all his lands to his son Jonathan, reportedly in exchange for keeping "himself, his wife Katherine and daughter Mercy in their infirmity" (WikiTree summary). Mercy, the wife of Lt. Matthias Ellis, was probably his daughter. A son Ebenezer is said to have married Sarah Gibbs.

Open questions

• His parents: Hilder, Nye and Shaw (NEHGR 158, 2004) point to Sussex.
• The 1704 deed itself: "daughter Mercy" or "daughter Mercy Ellis"?
• Why Barnstable's receipt is for £50 "in full" when the town record has £73 16s.