Bolton, A History of the Stanwood Family in America (1899)

Compiled genealogy with abstracts of Gloucester and Essex records.

• Philip Stanwood (pp. 19-22): bought Robert Tucker’s house in Annisquam in 1654; selectman 1657, 1658, 1660, 1670 and 1671; “In 1666 4th mo Philip Stanwood is allowed as the eldest Seargent of the foot Company at Gloucester”; died Aug. 7, 1672; his widow Jane, administratrix, married John Pearce, Sept. 12, 1673, and died Aug. 18, 1706. Bolton estimates Philip’s birth as 1628-30. Also fence-viewer in 1654 (pp. 11-12). Bolton found no English origin (Stanswood in Hampshire is only a guess from the name), and dismisses the “Sir Ralph Stanwood of Wharton” arms owned by descendants as the work of the Boston arms painter John Cole: “there is neither a Sir Ralph Stanwood, nor in fact any Stanwood, among the lists of baronets”. Philip left no will; Jane’s administration “seems to be the only document directly relating to Philip and his family, in existence”. She agreed a division with the children who were of age: “Jane Stainewood now Jane [Pearce] being apoynted administratrix to the estate of her late husband Phillip Stainewood, deceased, being now married to another man…” A Town Book note on her second husband in old age: “John Pearce is very old, almost bed-rid, and relieved by the town” (pp. 20-22).
• John Stanwood (pp. 31-35): born “the last of the last mo 1652” (p. 31); in garrison at Lancaster, 25 Jan 1675/6, pay £3-1-8, then in Capt. Samuel Brocklebank’s company in King Philip’s War (credited 24 July 1676); a soldier’s lot at Kettle Cove in 1679 (pp. 31-32); “Sargent John Stainwood deceased January the 25th day 1706” (p. 32). Married Lydia Butler “in Boston, by ‘Capten John Hull.’ The records of Gloucester, entered at Salem, give her name as ‘Lidea Cuttler’”. Lydia’s depositions of 1737 and 1742 name “her father Thos Messer” of Sheepscot; in 1742 she “lived at the house of her father Thos Messer on ye West Side of s[ai]d Sheepscut River… till she was seventeen years old and married, which time was before the first Indian Wars.” Bolton found three depositions by Lydia Stanwood in the Boston Court-house and a fourth in the Wiscasset town hall; by the age she gave at Wiscasset, she married Butler at seventeen and had remarried before twenty. The Sheepscot settlement “was wiped out during the Indian wars”, so nothing is known of her first husband. Bolton’s conclusion: “It seems to be almost beyond dispute that this Lydia Butler, or Cutler, the wife of John, is the Lydia Stanwood who made the three depositions” (pp. 32-34). John’s inventory: “one Dwelling House very old and bad & five acres of land & four acres of Salt marsh…”, “one old Sloop”, “Arms and sword”, “Books 6s” and a “Canoe 6s”; signed by “Thomas Riggs Sen’”, James Davis and John Ring; administration to his eldest son John, 18 Mar 1705/6 (pp. 34-35).
• Joshua Riggs as guardian, Oct. 17, 1752: “Joshua Riggs, guardian of Jonathan Stanwood, non-compos mentis, petitioned the court to be allowed to sell Jonathan’s property to pay his debts.” The debts exceeded the estate by £22-9-4. After Jonathan died in 1760, Joshua sold a further piece of his land (p. 40). The ward was Jonathan Stanwood (b. 27 Sept 1696), son of Jonathan Stanwood and Mary Nichols.
• James Stanwood: “In 1728 he was admitted as a citizen of Falmouth, Maine, but apparently did not settle there” (p. 44); Falmouth’s terms were to pay two pounds, “to Buld and settle In twelf monthes and not to sell in seven years”. In 1769, “in consideration of the love and good-will he bears his daughter the widow of Isaac Davis of Gloucester, deceased, and because she has supported Supplied & attended” himself and her mother, he gave her “half his dwelling-house and land”. “The date of his death is not in the Town Books” (p. 45).
• His children (p. 45, OCR), eight born 1714-1728: Mary b. 1714 (m. Daniel Elwell, then Isaac Davis), Experience, Susanna, Martha (1722, died the next day), James (1723), William (1726) and Abigail (1728), with: “92. Experience, bapt. April 22, 1715. 93. Susanna, bapt. December 27, 1719. 94. Experience, b. December 2[1?], 1719; m. October 23, 1735, Joshua Riggs.” This conflicts with the Gloucester VR, which has Experience born Apr. 17, 1716, and Susanna born Dec. 21, 1719.