Thomas Holbrook

The immigrant. Son of William Holbrooke, a Glastonbury yeoman, he was born about 1589, probably at Compton Dando, Somerset, where his father then lived, and married Jane Powyes at St John's, Glastonbury, on 12 Sept 1616. On 20 Mar 1634/5 "Thomas Holbrooke of Broudway aged 34 yeare" was enrolled at Weymouth, Dorset, in the Rev. Joseph Hull's company, with Jane (34), John (11), Thomas (10), Anne (5) and Elizabeth (1) (NEHGR 25:14; Hotten p. 285); "Broudway" was perhaps the parish of Broadway near Ilminster, or a place near Glastonbury. In a deposition of 2 Nov 1666, "an old man of seventy-seven," he said he came with Mr. Hull's company, which landed at Dorchester on 7 June 1635, and went on to Weymouth after about a fortnight (Suffolk Court Files no. 815, via Davis 1945).

He settled at "Old Spain," Weymouth, Massachusetts. Weymouth's historian Gilbert Nash (1885) says the larger part of the early town lived in North Weymouth, "commonly known as 'Old Spain,'" running from the shore of the bay to Burying Hill, a name the village had carried "from time immemorial, and whose origin cannot now be traced"; the Pilgrim Church of North Weymouth (1852) was founded "in Old Spain." The Weymouth land book (c. 1644) lists parcels "first giuen to Thomas Holbrooke" on Round Island, Kingoke hill, "the plaine" and the Westerneck, and in 1651/2 he drew great lot no. 21 east of Fresh Pond, which in Nash's day was called Whitman's Pond, in East Weymouth. As a townsman (selectman) he witnessed the Indian deed for Weymouth, with a marginal agreement with Natahant dated March 1652 (Nash, pp. 251-282).

He was a townsman (selectman) of Weymouth in 1641-1654, and was made a freeman of Massachusetts Bay between May 1645 and March 1647 (Mass. Bay Records 2:294). Named among the first proprietors of Rehoboth in 1643, he forfeited the lot in 1644/5 by not moving there. On 25 Feb 1648/9 "Thom : Holbrooke, Henry Kingman, & Nathell Adams, a comittee of Waymoth" agreed with Braintree on "laying out of the high way for the country, from Waymoth to Dorchest'r," four rods wide past Braintree meeting house; the General Court received their return in May 1649 (Mass. Bay Records 2:271-272; 3:158). Deane says he held land in Scituate by 1649, where his son William later settled (History of Scituate, p. 287). His sons John and William both became captains, and his son Thomas settled at Braintree.

His will (31 Dec 1668) names wife Jane, eldest son John as executor, sons Thomas and William, daughters Anne Rennolds, Elizabeth Hatch and Jane Drake, and grandsons John (his sword), Peter (his gun) and William (his musket). Deane's abstract: "To wife Jane all my estate during her life, (requesting sons John, William and Thomas to be helpful to her, as she is ancient and weak of body)" (p. 287). In their old age, Mollie Pfeiffer's typescript says, their grandson Peter cared for them for about eight years.

King Philip's War. He was about 86 and probably still living at Weymouth when, on the night of 25 Feb 1675/6, "the Indians fired seven Houses and Barns in Weymouth" (A Brief History of the Warr, Drake's ed. p. 121; "seven or eight," in Hubbard's Narrative, Drake's ed. 1:178). That spring his son John led one of the three foot companies sent toward Hassanamesit, and a grandson, Thomas of Braintree, had probably marched in the Narragansett campaign (see Thomas Holbrook). He died in the last months of the war, shortly before 10 Mar 1676/7, when his inventory calls him lately deceased (Davis 1945); his will was proved on 24 Apr 1677. Savage has him "last at Medfield" (Savage 2:443), but that was another Thomas Holbrook, of the Medfield and Sherborn country, a selectman of Sherborn in 1679 (Mass. Bay Records 5:443).

Mollie Pfeiffer's typescript (pp. 1-6, 11-12) calls him "son of Sir Thomas Holbrooke of Broadway" and gives him wives Experience Leland and Jane Kingman; his wife was Jane Powyes, and his father William Holbrooke.

Open questions

• Whether his house was among those burned at Weymouth on 25 Feb 1675/6: the 1923 History of Weymouth.
• His Y-DNA: a test by a male-line descendant of Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook would show whether J-FTD548 is his signature (Early Holbrook Family in England: Research Findings).