Ira B. Peck, Descendants of Joseph Peck (1868)

Compiled genealogy. Gives Joseph Peck’s baptism at Beccles, 30 Apr 1587, as son of Robert Peck and Hellen Babbs (daughter of Nicholas Babbs); his marriage to Rebecca Clark at Hingham, England, 21 May 1617 (she was buried 24 Oct 1637); his death, 23 Dec 1663, “in the seventy-seventh year”; and Joseph Jr.’s baptism, 23 Aug 1623. Quotes Daniel Cushing’s Hingham record of the 1638 arrival: “Mr. Joseph Peck and his wife with three sons and daughter and two men servants, and three maid servants, came from Old Hingham, and settled at New Hingham.” Prints Joseph Jr.’s will (5 July 1697, codicil 11 Mar 1701): “I give unto my daughter Hannah wife of Daniel Reed & to her heirs forever all my medow in the north purchase & twenty pounds”.

Peck says the pedigree in the British Museum is his source, “excepting the two last families, those of Robert and Joseph, which are added to it”, and that the motto “has been added”.

Also used:

• Joseph Peck (pp. 15-25): “Representative, or deputy to the General Court in 1639, 1640, 1641 and 1642”; at Hingham a selectman, justice of the peace and assessor, appointed “to grant summons and attachments, to see people joined in marriage”; a principal purchaser of Seacunk (Rehoboth) in 1641, moving there in 1645, when, by the Rehoboth records, “riding thither they sheltered themselves and their horses in an Indian wigwam, which by some occasion took fire, and (although there were four in it, and labored to their utmost) burnt three of their horses to death, and all their goods, to the value of fifty pounds.” His brother Rev. Robert Peck was rector of Hingham, Norfolk, from 1605 (p. 25).
• Joseph’s holograph will (Plymouth Colony wills, pp. 19-20): “my gould Ringe” to his son Joseph; “my two silver wine cupps” to John and Nicholas; the rest to “my six sonnes … the youngest and weakest to have as good a share as the eldest and strongest”; “Mr Newman and my brother Thomas Cooper” supervisors. A deathbed addition recorded by the sons gave Joseph “half his meddow that hee purchased of Mr Bradford lying on the further side of the new Meddow River.”
• Rebecca (Clark) Peck’s children baptized at Hingham, England: Anna, 12 Mar 1617/18, buried there 27 July 1636; Rebecca, 25 May 1620.
• Robert Peck of Beccles (pp. 21-23): “born in 1546 and died in 1593, aged forty-seven”; called a “gentleman” entitled to coat-armour. His will of March 1592/3, made while “sick and weake of body at chemisfforde in the cowntye of Essex … of a pluresye,” left his wife Hellen, “in consideration of the paiment of my debts the bringinge up of my children and the finishinge of the houses which I am now in buildinge,” his houses and lands in Beccles and Barsham for life, made her sole executrix with power to sell his woods or meadows in Barsham, and asked her to have care of their children “And also of Joane Babb & Elisabeth Babb”; his son Richard had “my houses where in I dwell in Blibergate street.” Children: Richard (d. without issue), Nicholas (m. Rachel Young), Robert (rector at Hingham), Joseph, Margaret, Martha and Samuel.
• Joseph Jr.’s will directs the £20 to his daughter Hannah Reed to be paid within four years of his death.