William Harlow

William Harlow was a cooper, sergeant of the Plymouth militia, and a selectman and deputy for the town. He was in New England by 1637: at Lynn that year, then at Sandwich, then at Plymouth. In 1649 he married Rebecca Bartlett, a granddaughter of Richard Warren, and their children were William (5-26 Oct 1650), Samuel (27 Jan 1652/3), Rebecca (12 June 1655) and William (2 June 1657). In 1658 he married Mary Faunce, and had by her Mary (1659), Repentance (1660), John (1662) and Nathaniel (30 Sept 1664). Elder Thomas Faunce, who identified Plymouth Rock in 1741, was her brother.

Mary died in 1664, and in 1665/6 he married Mary Shelley, the mother of Hannah, Bathsheba, Joanna, Mehitabel and Judith. In 1665 the town granted him "a little knowl or small parcel of land, lying near his now dwelling-house ... to sett a new house upon" (Davis, Part I pp. 321-322). On 12 Apr 1667 Nathaniel Morton, the colony's secretary and later the author of New-Englands Memoriall, and his wife Lydia took the motherless boy "Nathaniel Harlow, being now neare two yeares and an half old," to bring up until he was 21 (PCR 5). Mary Faunce had been Morton's niece, and Morton's will (1685) calls him "my loving kinsman Seargent William Harlow" and remembers "my kinsman Nathaniel Harlow" (via Stratton).

On 5 June 1671 he was among the "psons apointed by the Court to view the Damage done to the Indians by the Horses and Hoggs of the English," and he was appointed, with Lt. Morton, Joseph Warren and William Clarke, to buy "whatsoeuer lands are yett vnpurchased ... att Sepecan" (PCR 5:54). In the town's rating of trades on 5 Aug 1672 "Serjeant harlow," a cooper, was valued at £40, against £30 for Samuel Rider Jr. (Plymouth Town Records 1:118; record). The damage to the Wampanoag fields was one of the grievances Philip's council laid before the Rhode Island magistrates in June 1675: "the English Catell and horses still incresed that when thay removed 30 mill from wher English had anithing to do, thay Could not kepe ther coren from being spoyled" (John Easton's relation, in Narratives of the Indian Wars, p. 11).

King Philip's War. On 7 Jan 1675/6, with warrants before it "to presse eleven able sufficient men to goe forth as souldiers against the Indians" and to raise a rate of £11, the town meeting "made Choise of a Councell for the Towne to advice and order the affaires of the Towne Respecting the p[re]mises ... Capt Willam Bradford Joseph Warren Mr Thomas Cushman Willam Crow Leiftenant Morton Willam Clarke Serjeant harlow" (Plymouth Town Records 1:145). On 19 Feb the town ordered "a fortification ... upon the fort hill ... an hundred foot square the pallasadoes to be 10 foot and one halfe longe," and "every man is to doe three foot of the said ffence" (1:146-147). He was a grand juryman on 4 May 1676 and a rater on 13 June; "Serjeant Willam harlow" heads the Harlows, among them "Samuell harlow," in a list of some eighty Plymouth men entered between those meetings, perhaps for the rate for the soldiers' pay voted on 4 May (1:148-149). On 19 Aug 1676 he, William Crow and Joseph Warren were chosen "to take the accoumpt of each manes estate ... for defraying of the publicke Charges of the Collonie," and on 15 June 1677 he was on the committee "to take an accoumpt of what is due from severall p[er]sons Relateing to the warr since the last expedition under Major Bradford" (Plymouth Town Records 1:147, 150-151).

The Harlow Old Fort House. After the war "a grant of the timbers of the fort was made to William Harlow" (Davis), and by Plymouth tradition he built the house still standing at 119 Sandwich Street with them in 1677; a survey of the house in 1996 dated it to 1700 or later. The Plymouth Antiquarian Society opened it to the public in 1921 (Wikipedia; Plymouth Antiquarian Society). The house passed to his son Samuel in the 1692 division, to Samuel's son William, father of Phebe (Harlow) Stephens, in 1728, and out of the family in 1765. Later it came back to Phebe Stephens's relatives: her uncle Eleazer Stephens (1778-84), her brother Sylvanus by his marriage to Joseph Doten's widow, and her nephew Lemuel Stephens (from 1822) (Davis, Part I pp. 321-322, from deeds).

On 9 Mar 1683/4, the first Sunday in the new meetinghouse, "Will'. Harlow did in such a manner expresse himselfe murmuring at the soe preaching" (CSM 22:254), the sergeant or perhaps his son William. Mollie's typescript has him finally a Quaker, but the sergeant died a church member.

On 10 Mar 1690/1 a drift whale came ashore against the Clarkes' pasture fence, and the selectmen attached it for the town. The town then chose others to act in court, "seing serjant harlow & Joseph Bartlet did somwhat decline the Thing" (Plymouth Town Records 1:200). Mollie's typescript prints a writ, "Dated at Plimouth January ye 8th 1689/90," in which the selectmen sue Samuel Rider and William Harlow Jr. for taking the whale, and says Harlow stepped aside "that he might not prosecute his own son."

On 2 June 1691 the court approved the Plymouth selectmen: "Serjeant Willm Harlow, Plym, Nathll Southworth, Thomas Faunce" (PCR 6:264). He died on 25 Aug 1691, "in his 67th yeare neere finished."

Open questions

• His English origin (MD 12:193-194).
• The year of the drift whale, 1689/90 or 1690/1: the Plymouth town records.