Walter Woodworth

Walter was the first of the Woodworths of Scituate, in Plymouth Colony, and the forefather of Nancy (Woodworth) Fairchild's line. "To WALTER WOODWORTH in 1635 was assigned the third lot on Kent street, which runs along the ocean front, at the corner of Meeting-house lane, and there he built his house" (source). Deane places him "amongst the men of Kent," with other land "on the first Herring brook 30 rods below Stockbridge's mill" and on Walnut Tree Hill (source); the Herring Brook land is where "afterward stood the residence of the poet, SAMUEL WOODWORTH," and the hill was long called Walter Woodworth's Hill. He was assessed 9s "for the public use" in 1640, admitted a freeman on 2 March 1641, made surveyor of highways in 1645, 1646 and 1656, and in 1654 was a member of the First Church when it ordained Charles Chauncy. "When his next door neighbor, Japhet Turner, in 1661 pulled down WALTER'S fence and obliterated his boundary lines, WALTER promptly sued him and obtained a verdict for £5 and costs" (source). In 1666 he bought 60 acres at Weymouth.

He left no will. His children were Benjamin; Walter, born 1645; Thomas; Joseph; Mary, born 10 March 1650, who married Aaron Symonds in 1677; Martha, who married Lieut. Zachary Damon in 1679; Isaac; Elizabeth; and Mehitable, born 15 Aug 1662.

Benjamin and King Philip's War. His eldest son Benjamin probably served in the war, and came home. On 21 July 1676 the council of war listed "such souldiers of Scittuat whoe desired to be satisfyed in lands for such seruice as they pformed for the country," headed by Lt. Isaac Buck, with "Charlse Stockbridge, for Benjamine Woodworth, 07:09:00" (Records of the Colony of New Plymouth 5:206). Charles Stockbridge, the half-brother of Benjamin's sister-in-law Sarah, kept the mill and its garrison house, "pallisadoed on three sides, the fourth being defended by the mill pond," where on 20 May 1676 the attackers "fought several hours" (Deane pp. 126-127). In March 1677 "JOSEPH WOODWORTH" and "BENJAMINE WOODWORTH" sat on a Scituate jury, on "one Robbinson" killed by a falling tree near Edward Wanton's land (PCR 5:227), and in 1733 "LEABANON. Benjamin Woodworth." was among the Narragansett grantees, with no one claiming for him (Soldiers in King Philip's War, p. 428). He had probably moved to Lebanon, Connecticut, where a Benjamin Woodworth died in 1728. His descendant in the fifth generation was the poet Samuel Woodworth (1784-1842), author of "The Old Oaken Bucket."

Mehitable's case. At the court of 6 March 1676/7 Mary Ingham, wife of Thomas Ingham of Scituate, was indicted for that she had, "by the healp of the diuill, in a way of witchcraft or sorcery, malliciously procured much hurt, mischeiffe, and paine vnto the body of Mehittable Woodworth, the daughter of Walter Woodworth, of Scittuate aforsaid, and some others, and pticularly causing her, the said Mehittable, to fall into violent fitts ... soe as shee, the said Mehittable Woodworth, hath bin almost bereaued of her sences, and hath greatly languished, to her much suffering therby, and the procuring of great greiffe, sorrow, and charge to her parents." A jury of twelve, among them John Howland and Joseph Bartlett, "brought in not guilty" (source). The colony's only other witchcraft case, also from Scituate, against the wife of William Holmes in 1660, had ended with her accuser acknowledging "maliciously accusing the woman," so Mehitable's was the only one tried before a jury. Deane calls her one "who was unfortunate in regard to her health" (source).

The family has long told that Benjamin was killed in the war, from the land "assigned for his services, to Charles Stockbridge, for the use of Benjamin Woodworth's family" (source; source).

Research: Notable connections of Frances Fairchild Holbrook: the Fairchild branch and the families that married in.

Open questions

• His English origin (the Woodworth Records guess Kent) and his wife's name.
• Whether Benjamin Woodworth of Lebanon (d. 1728) was his son or his grandson Benjamin (b. 1676): the 1733 grantees' papers in the Massachusetts Archives may say.
• When he died.