William Briscoe

Tailor; son of Rev. Guy Briscowe, rector of Sundridge, and Mary Wilson. He lived at Watford, Hertfordshire, where his children by his first wife Jane were baptized, and brought his family to Boston in 1639, apparently within weeks of his son Ezekiel’s baptism at Watford in April (NEHGR 178:11).

On 24 Feb 1639/40 “William Briscoe, taylor” was allowed to be an inhabitant of Boston “and to have a great Lott, for eight heads, at the mount” (Boston RC 2:48). He was admitted to the First Church in January 1640/1 and made a freeman on 2 June 1641. His Boston house stood on what is now the north side of Boylston Street, between Washington and Tremont: “One house and garden bounded with Robert Walker east: the Common north: the streete south” (Book of Possessions). The town made him an overseer of the common fence at Muddy River (now Brookline) in 1642 and 1647 (Boston RC 2).

In June 1642 Winthrop wrote that a young church member named Briscoe, who “kept with his father, a godly poor man,” ignored his father’s request for help and went to load a boat for wages, “fell into the water and was drowned” (Journal 2:61-62). Winthrop calls him Nathaniel; the Dunn edition and NEHGR 178 identify him as William’s son Daniel, whose death Boston recorded that spring.

On 27 Aug 1648 the First Church gave “our brother William Briscoe and our sister Sisely his wife” letters of recommendation to the church at Milford, Connecticut, and to the church at Lynn, “being to dwell there for a season.” They were back in Boston later; Cicely died there on 9 Dec 1661 (NEHGR 178:24-25).

He was a first cousin of Rev. John Wilson, pastor of Boston’s First Church, whose will left 40s “To my cosin Benjamin Briscow,” William’s son (NEHGR 178:7). Administration of William’s estate went on 13 June 1667 to Benjamin, “his sonn that tooke all the Care & paines with him in his life time”; the inventory came to £17 7s (Suffolk Probate file 449, quoted in NEHGR 178:25).

His sons Benjamin and Ezekiel stayed in Boston. Benjamin, a shoemaker, was licensed in 1676 to retail strong waters in small quantities, on condition that people not drink it in his house, and in 1679 was fined £5 for selling cider without a license. Ezekiel, a mariner, died in 1674, apparently at Bristol, England (NEHGR 178:27-30).

Open questions

• His baptism day: the research, the colonial tree and the text of NEHGR 178 (p. 24) give 24 June 1591, but the same article’s transcript of the Sundridge register reads “1591 Williã, ye sonn of Guy Briscow, June 29” (p. 12), and its list of Guy’s children has 29 June. The page keeps 24 June until the register is checked.