Richard Cheever

The family Bible tells how Richard came to Boston. His uncle Bartholomew Cheever, a cordwainer, "having no Children of his Own in 1667 He sent to Canterbury to his Brother ... for One of his sons, the 2 first refused Coming his 3d & youngest son Richard then 7 year Old, accepted, and in 1668 Came over to his uncle" (source). He became a cordwainer like his uncle.

King Philip's War. In February 1676, still in his teens, he marched out of Boston with Capt. William Turner's company. "Richard Cheevers" is on "A List of Capt. William Turner's men as they came from Boston and taken at Medfield 1675-6," taken on 22 February, the day after Medfield was partly destroyed (Mass. Archives 68:158; Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 234, 239). On the same list is Ephraim Roper of Lancaster, the one man to escape when the Rowlandson garrison was burned on 10 Feb 1675/6, where Thomas Rowlandson, brother of Martha Rowlandson, was killed. The company marched on from Marlborough on 29 Feb and from Quabaug on 4 March to Northampton, which was attacked on 14 March while it was there, and Richard was probably in that fight. Turner wrote: "The Rest continued under my Command till ye 7th of Aprill att which time 4 were left in Hadly by order of ye Councell and part of the Companie marched under the conduct off Lieut. Drinker with Maj. Savage, some by order staying with me" (p. 240). Richard very probably came home in April with Drinker and Major Savage, before the Falls Fight of 19 May, where Turner was killed. He was credited "Richard Cheever 03 12 10" under Turner on 24 June 1676 (p. 248).

He married Abigail in 1680 and lived in the house Bartholomew had built in Conduit Street, near the Great Drawbridge, after the fire of 1679. He served Boston as surveyor (1683/4), tithingman (1685, 1694/5), sealer of leather (1691/2) and constable (1692/3), and later rode express for the Council: in 1702 "the treasurer was ordered to pay him £4 for his having been sent twice with expresses to Piscataqua," and in 1703 he carried letters "on her Majesty's service" to Ipswich, Plymouth, Newbury, Piscataqua and New London.

Bartholomew died in 1693. His will left Richard the Conduit Street house, which Richard sold in 1704, and, after the widow Lydia's death, the use of Bartholomew's own house and shop on Hanover Street until Richard's son Bartholomew came of age; that house stayed in the family for two centuries. The will names Richard and Ezekiel Cheever, the schoolmaster, as two different "cousins," and Richard was no son of Ezekiel, nor of Daniel Cheever of Cambridge.

Richard's estate was appraised at £2192 2s. 5d. when his widow took administration on 8 Aug 1709. Their children, all born at Boston, were Bartholomew (1681, died young), Susanna (1682, m. Robert Rand), Bartholomew (1684, sugar baker), Mary (1686), Sarah (1689, m. Daniel Pecker), Mary (1691, m. Andrew Cunningham), Abigail (1694), Daniel (1696), James (1698), Hannah (1699) and Hannah (1702).

Open questions

• His baptism at Canterbury, about 1660, and his father's name (James? Peter? John?).
• The full texts of Bartholomew Cheever's will (Suffolk no. 2108, 1693) and Richard's administration (no. 3189, 1709).
• The war credit of 24 Aug 1676 that Hassam gives: Hull's journal.

Research: Woodbury, Rand–Cheever–Ivory and Slater lines behind the Ellingwoods.