Thomas Rowlandson
Of Ipswich, Massachusetts, by 1637, a freeman of 1638 and a grand juror there, who about 1655 followed his son Rev. Joseph Rowlandson to Lancaster and died there in 1657. Joseph's wife Mary wrote the most famous captivity narrative of King Philip's War. Probably the father of Thomas Rowlandson of Salisbury, and so a grandfather of Martha (Rowlandson) Ellinwood.
Life
- 1657Died
Family
- Parents
- Spouse
- Bridget
His second wife, married after 1643: "Brigitt, wife of Thomas Rowlison, late wife of Robert Mussey" (Essex Probate, 1648). She married thirdly, 31 May 1659, William Kerley Sr., and died 14 June 1662. His first wife, the mother of his children, is not named.
- Children
Pedigree
Notes
Of Ipswich and Lancaster; the father of Thomas Rowlandson of Salisbury, and so a grandfather of Martha (Rowlandson) Ellinwood; and the father of the Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, first minister of Lancaster, whose wife Mary wrote the most famous captivity narrative of King Philip’s War.
He was at Ipswich by 1637 and made freeman in 1638 (source). About 1648-50 the Ipswich court recorded “Thomas Rolinson, sr., freed from training. [To pay 2s. 6d. per year to the company.]” (record); he was on the grand jury, and sued a tenant, William Whittred, for withholding rent. In July 1651 his son Joseph, then a Harvard student and its only graduate of 1652, confessed to posting a “scandelous lybell” on the Ipswich meeting-house, “Turninge out all Associates which are able to corrupt justice,” and “Thomas Rolandson” stood his surety in £50. About 1655 he followed Joseph to Lancaster, where he died on 17 Nov 1657; Marvin’s history of the town names “Thomas Rowlandson, the father of the minister,” among its dead fathers.
His children, as Hoyt gives them: Thomas, of Ipswich and Salisbury; Elizabeth (m. Dea. Richard Wells of Salisbury and then John Harris of Rowley); Martha (m. John Eaton); and Joseph (b. about 1631, H.C. 1652), who married Mary White in 1656 and was ordained at Lancaster in 1660. Savage makes Joseph “s. of Thomas” and Thomas of Salisbury “s. of the preced.” That the two were brothers is supported by the casualty list of the attack on Lancaster on 10 Feb 1675/6, where Thomas of Salisbury’s son, aged 19, was killed in the minister’s house as “Thomas Rowlandson, nephew of the minister” (source).
Open questions
- His estate papers (Middlesex probate, 1657), which should name his sons Thomas and Joseph and prove the link to Mary Rowlandson.
Research: research/ellingwood/Ellingwood_Kin_Connections.md.
Connections
- Famous kin
- Mary Rowlandson
Author of The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682), the narrative of her captivity in King Philip's War
Aunt by marriage of Martha (Rowlandson) Ellinwood, wife of Ralph Ellinwood Jr.: her husband, Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, was a brother of Martha's father, Thomas Rowlandson of Salisbury.
- Mary Rowlandson
- Small world