Low Line

From Thomas Low, maltster of Chebacco in Ipswich, who came with Rev. Nathaniel Rogers’s company in 1636 and was at Chebacco by 1643, through three more generations at Ipswich and Chebacco to Nathan Low of Boxford, who marched on the Lexington alarm in 1775. His son Major Nathan married into the Thompson family of Deer Isle, Maine, and settled there between 1795 and 1797. Major Nathan’s son Capt. Nathan was a Deer Isle shipmaster who died in 1874 after a steamer ran down his schooner off Seguin. Capt. Nathan’s eldest daughter, Harriet Phillips Low, married Crowell H. Sylvester at Deer Isle in 1852, was divorced from him by the Washington territorial legislature in 1860, and that Christmas Eve married Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook at Steilacoom.

The line at a glance

Thomas Low (c. 1605 - 1677) > Deacon Thomas (c. 1631/2 - 1712) > Sgt. David (1667 - 1746) > Caleb (c. 1707 - 1777) > Nathan (1742 - 1804) > Major Nathan (1765 - 1859) > Capt. Nathan (1805 - 1874) > Harriet Phillips (1834 - 1918)

The wives bring in the Essex County and Roxbury families: Boreman (and Carter of Claydon), Lamb, Wise and Tompson, Varney, Proctor and Cogswell, Lord, Fuller and Emerson. Rebecca (Thompson) Low brings in Thompson, Foster, Bate, Payson, Briscoe, Bigg, Kneeland and Hawkins. Harriet descends twice from Joseph Wise and Mary Tompson of Roxbury, through Mary Lamb and through Abigail Cogswell, so Caleb Low and his wife Abigail Varney were second cousins. John Proctor, hanged at Salem in 1692, was the brother of Abigail (Proctor) Varney; Deacon Thomas Low and Thomas Varney signed the Ipswich petition for him, and had signed another together for their neighbours the Wellses in 1668.

How the links stand

The research of October 2026 (research/low/Low_Master_Research.md) closed the four links that rested on Mollie’s typescript and compiled accounts:

• Capt. Nathan > Harriet (proven): her Deer Isle birth record, parents Nathan Low and Hannah R.; the 1850 census; her 1887 power of attorney as “one of the daughters and heirs at law” of Hannah R. Low; and her 1918 death certificate, father “Capt. Lowe.”
• Major Nathan > Capt. Nathan (proven): his Deer Isle birth record, 24 Mar 1805, on the page of Nathan and Rebekah’s children; his 1838 deeds as “Nathan Low Jun.”; and his letters of administration on his father’s estate in 1859.
• Nathan of Boxford > Major Nathan (proven): his father’s will of 1803, leaving “my son Nathan Low” two dollars beyond what he had already been given; the family Bible kept on Deer Isle (“His son Nathan Jr. was Major”); his daughters’ East Boxford baptisms; and the 1850 census, born Massachusetts.
• Thomas the immigrant > Deacon Thomas (proven): the 1677 will, “my Sonne Thomas Low Thirty pownds.”

The weakest links

• Sgt. David > Caleb (probable): David’s will of 1745 names a son Caleb, known only from Merriam’s abstract. Caleb’s birth is not recorded.
• Thomas Low and Margaret Tod (probable), and Deacon Thomas as their son baptized at Groton in 1631 (possible): the Polstead, Groton and Boxford entries match the family’s names, but nothing yet carries the Suffolk couple to Ipswich.
• Rebecca Thompson’s parents (probable): Hosmer and the Deer Isle families typescript.
• Mary (Foster) Thompson’s father (possible): John Foster of Roxbury married in 1750, about five years after she was born. Everything on the Foster, Kneeland and Briscoe side hangs on this link.

Where Mollie’s typescript goes wrong

Her Low chart matches the records for the most part, but she dropped or merged a generation twice (Abigail Proctor was the grandmother, not the mother, of Abigail (Varney) Low; there were two James Lords), and she made Mary Tompson a daughter of Rev. William Tompson. Capt. David Low was a first cousin of Nathan (1742), not a brother, and nothing makes Major Caleb Low an aide to Washington. Nathan (1742) cannot have gone against Quebec with his grandfather, who died when he was three. Capt. Nathan married on 16 Sept 1832, not 4 Oct. Major Nathan’s second wife was alive thirteen years into the marriage, which tells against her drowning herself in his spring. The newspapers say the Paragon’s crew were picked up by the steamer’s boats, not “left in the water many hours.” Harriet married Crowell H. Sylvester at 18, not 16, and the marriage was dissolved by a private act of the Washington territorial legislature on 17 Jan 1860: a divorce, not an annulment. Lucy (Lord) Low had no daughter who married a Tappan; that was her third husband’s daughter. Every gentry and royal descent in her Low pages fails (Capt. John Lowe of the Ambrose, Wise of Sydenham, the Foresters, the Clelands and Wallace); the real gentry connection is Mary Tompson’s mother, Alice Freeman.

Open questions

• Who was “B. F. Law,” owner and master of the Paragon in the Portland paper, with “his father and brother” aboard? Capt. Nathan died of the collision, but the master may have been a son.
• Harriet’s obituary, her death certificate image, and the territorial bill file with “the testimony accompanying the bill” for her divorce.
• The probate files with inventories: Nathan of Boxford (Essex, 1804), Major Nathan (Hancock, 1859) and Capt. Nathan (Hancock, 1875).
• Mary (Foster) Thompson’s parents: Suffolk Probate no. 12403 and the 1773 guardianships. Thomas Thompson’s parents and origin.
• NEHGR 174 (2020), Steele, on the first three generations of Thomas Low’s descendants, and the Firmin will of St. Peter’s, Sudbury, said to name Giles Lowe’s children Thomas, John and Margaret.
• Two family Bibles: the 1579 Geneva Bible inscribed “Susana Low her Book 1677, May 19” (last reported at Essex in 1868), and Lucy (Lord) Low Choate’s 1802 Bible with the family record (last reported on Deer Isle).