William Nickerson

The founder of Chatham, great-great-grandfather of Sarah (Cole) Holdershaw. A worsted weaver of Norwich, admitted a freeman there in 1632, he left England in the persecution of Bishop Wren: "The examination of William Nickerson of Norwich, in Norfolk, weaver, aged 33, and Anne, his wife, aged 28, with four children, Nicho, Robartt, Elizabeth, Anne, are desirous to go to Boston in New England there to inhabit. April 8, 1637." They sailed from Yarmouth on the John and Dorothy with Anne's parents, in the party that included the young Samuel Lincoln, ancestor of Abraham Lincoln, and reached Salem on 20 June 1637 (source).

He took the freeman's oath at Boston in 1638, moved into Plymouth Colony, and by 1641 had a farm at the head of Bass River in Yarmouth. On 1 Mar 1641/2 he was complained of, with others, as a "Scoffer and jeerer of religion." About 1656 he bought the land at Monomoy from the sachem Mattaquason and his son John Quason without the Court's leave, and on 3 June 1656 "William Nicarson appeered, being summoned to answare for his buying of land of the Indians, contrary to order of the Court, and for selling of a boat to the Indians ... for his contempt of the warrant, he is disfranchised his freedom." The next year the Court allowed him "a competency or proportion out of it" and ordered him "to resigne up the remainder unto the court"; it took him some twenty years to secure his title. From 1657 the family was in Boston, where Anne nursed her parents until her mother died in 1660. In January 1661/2 he gave his daughter Elizabeth Eldred forty acres "out of ye lands that I purchased by ye Indian Sagamore Mattaquason at Monomoy," probably the first deed of Chatham land, and in time he moved there with his children's families, to what is now Chatham Port.

His children: Nicholas, Robert, Elizabeth and Anne, born in England; and Samuel, John, Sarah, William and Joseph, born in New England.

King Philip's War. Yarmouth sent its men out in expeditions, and the fourth, nine men, had a "Wm. Nickerson" in it: "Fourth Expedition, nine men, with Capt.: Hy. Gold, Jno. Taylor, Wm. Gage, Hy. Gage, Wm. Nickerson, James Maker, ..." (Freeman, History of Cape Cod 2:193n). He was about 71 then, and the soldier was perhaps his son William. His son Nicholas ("Nich. Nickerson") was charged in Yarmouth's rate for the war of 29 Apr 1676 (2:194).

He died at Monomoy between August 1689 and September 1690, and was buried at Burial Hill, now Chatham Port.

Research: Cape Cod ancestry of Hope Holdershaw and Hannah Brown.