Thomas Low

Maltster at Chebacco in Ipswich, the immigrant. He was probably the Thomas Lowe who married Margaret Tod at Polstead, Suffolk, on 22 June 1630: "Thos. Lowe & Margaret Tod married 22 June 1630." Their son Thomas was baptized at Groton on 8 May 1631, a daughter Margaret, it seems, at Boxford, "the home of the Tod family," on 17 June 1632, and John at Boxford on 2 Mar 1633; Thomas, Margaret and John are the three eldest names of the Ipswich family (V. B. Redstone, in Wm. G. Low's Genealogical Quest No. 2, 1909). Polstead is about three miles from Assington, where Rev. Nathaniel Rogers was rector until 1635.

Arrival. He came with Rogers's company, which sailed from Gravesend on 1 June 1636 and reached Massachusetts Bay that November. Winthrop wrote of two ships "full of passengers," "their beer all spent and leaked out a month before their arrival, so as they were forced to drink water (and that very little) mixed with sack or vinegar." An Ipswich town grant later gave him "ten acres of upland at Chebacco, next his ten acres there, in exchange for ten acres due to him by grant unto Mr. Rogers company near the three miles brook by Mr. Appleton's farme." In 1643 he settled at Chebacco "on land since owned by the late Captain Winthrop Low. His house was about thirty-five rods south of Captain Low's mansion" (Crowell p. 45). There he made malt: his inventory lists "the mault hous and the things belonging to it," and Rev. Thomas Cobbet's will of about 1685 mentions "Malt at old Goodman Lowe's malt house" (Hammatt p. 56).

At Ipswich. In 1647 he and Edward Bragg bought a large pasture from Thomas Firman (Waters 2:721). "Tho. Loe fined for not appearing to serve on the jury," Sept 1655; juror, March 1656; "Thomas Low deposed that John Fuller's wife owned some of the hogs," 1657; and in 1660 he and his daughter Sarah, about 23, said that John Lee had come to their house "with a parcel of hogs and asked if they were theirs and they replied that they were not" (Essex Quarterly Courts 1:398, 414; 2:22, 200). He or his son signed the Ipswich petition of 1666 to clear the colony "from the imputation either of disloyalty to the person, or disaffection to the government of their lawful Prince & Sovereign" (Waters 1:137-139). His children by the will: Thomas, Margaret (m. Daniel Davison), John (m. 1661 Sarah Thorndike) and Sarah (m. Joseph Safford).

King Philip's War. He was about seventy when the war came, and his inventory still held "one Sword, belt, powder, boullets." His son-in-law Joseph Safford, Sarah's husband, probably rode in Capt. Nicholas Paige's troop, sent with Maj. Thomas Savage's foot to Mount Hope in the war's first weeks, June-July 1675; "Joseph Safford 02 00 00" was credited on 3 Sept 1675 (Soldiers in King Philip's War, p. 86; Waters, p. 223). Credited in the same troop the same day was Joseph Proctor of Ipswich, brother of Abigail (Proctor) Varney, whose granddaughter Abigail Varney married his great-grandson Caleb Low in 1732/3. His son Thomas is probably the "Thomas Low" whose right in a Narragansett township his grandson Jonathan claimed in the 1730s (see Deacon Thomas Low).

His will, 20 April 1677 ("I Thomas Low Sent. of Ipswich in America in the Shire of Essex, being weake in body; but of good & perfect memory"), signed 30 April and proved 6 Nov 1677 (Probate Records of Essex County 3:175-177). His wife Susannah was to have "what goods she brought with hir," "the vse of that roome which I Lye in," the cow "which she liketh best," "one fourth part of her labor that she hath Spunn both Lening & woollen," and "hir beere as shee hath now, & also free vse of the fire." His son John had the houses and lands and was executor; son Thomas £30; daughters Margaret and Sarah £40 each; grandchildren Thomas Low, Margaret Davison, Sarah Safford and Sarah Low £5 each. He died at Ipswich on 8 Sept 1677. The inventory, £290 16s. 6d., includes the half house and barn, the malt-house, "about fifty boushels of unthrest barly," and the sword.

The Geneva Bible. Crowell (1868, pp. 354-355) describes a Geneva Bible of 1579, then owned by Capt. Winthrop Low's family at Essex, with "'Susana Low her Book 1677, May 19;' 'Thomas Low his Book' ... 'Samuel Low,' and 'John Low'" on its blank leaves; the 1677 inscription dates from the year of Thomas's death and his widow's settlement. By family tradition it came over with Capt. John Lowe of the Ambrose (Winthrop Fleet, 1630), Thomas's father as the family told it; Wm. G. Low, who looked hardest, thought "probably not." The Low name lore Mollie Pfeiffer gives (Domesday, a Lord Mayor, Capt. Barnaby Low of the Armada) and the wolf arms have never been tied to him.

Open questions

• Whether the Polstead, Groton and Boxford entries are his, and who Susannah and Margaret Tod were: Steele, "Descendants of Thomas Low, the Immigrant to Ipswich," NEHGR 174 (2020).
• His parents: Redstone's lead, the will of a widow Firmin of St. Peter's, Sudbury, naming "her kinsman Giles Lowe and his children, Thomas, John and Margaret" (Mollie p. 71).
• The 1579 Geneva Bible, last reported with Capt. Winthrop Low's family in 1868: the Essex Historical Society or the Ipswich Museum.