Thomas Lamb
Of Roxbury, Massachusetts, said to have come in the Winthrop Fleet of 1630. His first wife, Elizabeth, was buried in 1639 after childbirth; in 1640 he married Dorothy Harbottle at Roxbury, and he was the father of Caleb Lamb. He died of "calenture" and was buried at Roxbury on 28 Mar 1646.
Life
- 1640Married Dorothy Harbottle
- 1646Buried
Family
- Parents
- Spouse 1
- Elizabeth
Buried 28 Nov 1639, "child birth."
documentedproven - Spouse 2
- Dorothy Harbottledocumentedproven
1 child
Pedigree
Notes
Said to have come in the Winthrop Fleet, 1630 (compiled). John Eliot’s Roxbury church record: “Thomas Lambe, he came into this land in the yeare 1630 he brought his wife & 2 Children Thomas & John: Samuel his 3d son was borne about the 8th month of the same yeare 1630 & baptized in the church at Dorchester.” It adds Abel, “his 4th son,” born at Roxbury about the 6th month 1633, and Decline, “his first daughter,” born in the 2nd month 1637. Of Benjamin, “his 6th child,” born about the 8th month 1639, it says “his wife died & the child lived but few hours.” The rest of the entry is lost: the printed edition notes that the paragraph “has been cut out by some mutilator.” The Great Migration Begins (2:1153, as cited on WikiTree) also has him arriving in 1630 with his wife Elizabeth and sons Thomas and John; WikiTree gives an English origin at “Stow Langtoft, Co. Suffolk” without a source.
A founder of the Roxbury church. On 2 July 1633 the Massachusetts Bay court leased him part of the slate on Slate Island: “There is demised to Tho: Lambe, of slate in Slate Ileand, 10 poole towards the water side, & 5 poole into the land, for 3 yeares, payeing the yearely rent of ij s. vj d.” (Records of Mass. Bay 1:106). A 1641 deed bounds marsh “adioyning to Joshua Hewes and Thomas Lambe,” and in 1644 “Isaac Heath, Joshua Hewes, Thomas Lambe” signed a Roxbury fence agreement (Roxbury land records).
The church record of his death reads “Bro. Lambe dyed of a Calenture, by a great could” (1646). WikiTree (Lamb-322) says he died intestate, and an inventory was taken in 1646; the claim that he was a donor to the Roxbury free school has no source. A Roxbury survey of holdings made after his death lists “The heires of Thomas Lamb, his dwelling-house, barne, and house lot,” about 18 3/4 acres by the meeting-house hill and Stony River, “through which lyeth a cart way reserued for the use of the towne for euer.” The heirs also held about 19 3/4 acres by the dead swamp, 9 acres of salt marsh on the Boston line, 70 acres in the last division and 37 acres in “the thousand accres next Deddam.”
Mollie’s “Lambe of Bury” and King James story is one she says herself she had “not a clue” for. She also has him outliving his son Caleb, which is impossible.
Mollie's typescript
Mollie says he came in the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 with his wife Elizabeth and sons Thomas and John, settled at Roxbury as a merchant and farmer, and was a founder of the First Church and a donor to the free school.
Thomas Lamb (1) with his wife Elizabeth and two children, Thomas and John, came in the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 and settled in Roxbury. He was a merchant. ... was one of the founders of the First Church of Roxbury
p. 93 →After his first wife's death he married Dorothy Harbottle, and he had a homestead next to John Eliot's at Roxbury and a farm at Providence.
After his first wife, Elizabeth died he married Dorothy Harbottle "a goodly sister of the church". ... He had a homestead adjoining John Eliot in Roxbury , also a farm in Providence.
p. 94 →
Checked against the records
- UnlikelyThomas Lamb may be the "Old Lambe of Bury" of King James's jest
Mollie herself calls it "not a clue," and nothing connects them. Thomas Lamb's English home is unknown; the Bury story and the Lambes of Ufford share only the name.
Read it in the book, p. 93 → - DisprovenThomas Lamb outlived his son Caleb
Impossible. Thomas Lamb was buried at Roxbury on 28 Mar 1646, when Caleb was not quite five; Caleb married Mary Wise in 1669 and had children there until 1687. Caleb's own death and estate have not been found.
Read it in the book, p. 94 →