Whose sons were Deacon Elisha and Capt. Gideon Holbrook?
The question
The Holbrook male line runs from Thomas the immigrant, who sailed from Weymouth, Dorset, in 1635, to Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook Sr. (1821-1894), who settled on Whidbey Island. Every father-to-son step on that stretch is documented except two, both on Cape Cod: Capt. John Holbrook (b. 1686) of Scituate and Eastham to Deacon Elisha Holbrook of Wellfleet (1716-1779), and Elisha to Capt. Gideon Holbrook (c. 1765-1842), the Plymouth shipmaster and father of Richard B. Sr. Everything above Gideon, the Glastonbury Holbrooks included, hangs on these two links. We are looking for a record that names each man’s father. A smaller question rides along: which of two Plymouth men named Gideon Holbrook was a selectman in 1817-1820.
Trail
- 011 Oct 2026The line checked against the records
Mollie’s typescript ran the line through Thomas’s son Thomas of Braintree, so each American step was checked against records instead. The top steps are documented: Thomas’s will (31 Dec 1668) names his “eldest son John” (Will of Thomas Holbrook of Weymouth, Massachusetts); Capt. John’s will (12 July 1699) names his son John “who has a wife Abigail” and that son’s children (Will of Capt. John Holbrook of Weymouth, Massachusetts, read then as an abstract); and the Scituate records have “John, s. John, Nov. 19, 1686” (Vital Records of Scituate, Massachusetts, to 1850). The same records give “Elisha, s. Jo[h]n Jr. and Sarah, May 25, 1716”; John had married Sarah Chittenden at Scituate on 3 May 1709. So Elisha was born to the right John. The question is whether this Scituate-born Elisha is the Elisha found later at Eastham and Wellfleet.
- 021 Oct 2026Mollie’s route set aside
Mollie’s typescript, following W. T. Davis’s Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (1899), made Elisha a son of “Eliphalet, son of Peter” (Mollie Frances (Holbrook) Pfeiffer, Holbrook-Low family typescript, Books 1-9, William T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (1899)). The only known Eliphalet son of Peter was born 27 Feb 1691/2 and died at Bellingham, Mass., 19 Oct 1775; his children were born at Mendon and Bellingham, 1717-1736, and he deeded his Bellingham homestead in 1767. Nothing places him, or any son Elisha of his, on Cape Cod, and Davis’s own entry lists the same sons under both Eliphalet and Elisha. Mollie and the records agree from Elisha down. She also says Gideon came from Wellfleet to Manomet as a boy with his “uncle Naaman” and inherited Naaman’s house. A Naaman Holbrook is in the Plymouth records, but no record yet shows how he was related to Gideon.
- 031 Oct 2026The Scituate John on Cape Cod
Court records follow John from “John Holbrook of Scituate in the County of Plimouth, Gent.” (1734-1737) to “John Holbrook of Hingham in the County of Suffolk now of Eastham in the County of Barnstable, Gent.” (1738) and “of Eastham … Gentleman” (1739-1745) (Suffolk and Bristol County court records naming John Holbrook of Scituate and Eastham). In 1749 administration on the estate of “Capt John Holbrook late of Eastham … Gent Deceased” went to his son “John Holbrook of Eastham … Seafaring man” (Administration on the estate of Capt. John Holbrook late of Eastham, Gent.). So he died at Eastham, not at Scituate in 1740/1 as the FamilySearch tree has it. A Thomas Holbrook “late of Eastham now Wellfleet,” yeoman, dead by 1764, was probably his son (Estate of Thomas Holbrook late of Eastham, yeoman); his son Ezekiel married Martha Mayo at Eastham in 1751; and Daniel Mayo Sr. of Eastham’s will of 8 Nov 1754 names “Sarah the wife of Elisha Holbrook” and “Martha the wife of Ezekiel Holbrook” (Will of Daniel Mayo Sr. of Eastham, yeoman, Eastham, Massachusetts, town records of marriages). Vinton (1858) says that of John’s ten children “most of the others settled at Eastham and Wellfleet” (John Adams Vinton, The Vinton Memorial (Boston, 1858)). The father’s move, his sons there and two brothers marrying two Mayo sisters make the Eastham Elisha very probably the Scituate-born son: about 95%.
- 041 Oct 2026Elisha’s estate names his younger children, not Gideon
Elisha died without a will before 11 June 1779. The Barnstable probate papers call him “Deacon Elisha Holbrook late of Wellfleet.” His widow Priscilla (Newcomb) was made guardian of their minor children Daniel, Sarah, Joseph and Ezekiel, and “Eliphalet Holbrook of Wellfleet … Yeoman” of the youngest, Jeremiah; she also complained that Elisha’s son Eliphalet was holding five bushels of salt and other goods of the estate (Estate of Deacon Elisha Holbrook of Wellfleet, and guardianships of his minor children). No guardianship was found for Gideon, who would have been about 13 or 14, and a FamilySearch full-text search for Gideon at Wellfleet, Eastham or Barnstable before 1787 found nothing. The papers prove Eliphalet a son of Elisha, but neither prove nor disprove Gideon. (Most of Barnstable County’s early records burned in 1827; these survive.)
- 051 Oct 2026Gideon’s age and birthplace
Gideon’s gravestone at Manomet Cemetery, Plymouth, reads “GIDEON HOLBROOK / Died / Jan. 23, 1842 / Æ. 76 Y’rs.” (Æ., for aetatis, “aged”), so he was born between January 1765 and January 1766; Find a Grave’s “born 1786” misreads the 76 (Holbrook family gravestones, Manomet Cemetery, Plymouth). His daughter Mary’s death record of 1899 gives his birthplace as Wellfleet (Massachusetts death record of Mary Holbrook). No birth record has been found. A Wellfleet birth about 1765 fits a son of Elisha by his first wife Sarah (Mayo): she is named in her mother’s estate division of 1760, known so far only as WikiTree cites it (Estate of Mary Mayo of Eastham, widow of Daniel Mayo Sr.), and Elisha did not remarry until 1771.
- 061 Oct 2026Gideon and Eliphalet in partnership
On 20 Nov 1795 Eliphalet and Gideon Holbrook, “both of Plymouth … Mariner[s],” sold “our Dwelling house” at Monument Ponds, bought together from Capt. Samuel Hovey, to Caleb Bartlett (Deed, Eliphalet and Gideon Holbrook to Caleb Bartlett). With Jesse Harlow they co-owned a Plymouth schooner in 1803-1804 (Ship Registers of the District of Plymouth, 1939); a Gideon who was master and co-owner of the schooner Endeavour with Eliphalet in 1809 may be this Gideon or his nephew. Gideon named sons Elisha and Eliphalet (Will of Gideon Holbrook of Plymouth, gentleman). Davis (1899) and Radasch, The Thomas Clark Family (1973), both call Gideon a son of Elisha (Arthur H. Radasch, The Thomas Clark Family (1973)). Eliphalet (c. 1745-1815) was Elisha’s eldest son, so the partnership and the names point to Gideon as his brother, but no record states Gideon’s father: about 80-85%.
- 072 Oct 2026More of the family at Eastham
Gathering life details turned up the sons on Cape Cod before their father: Thomas married Margaret Doane at Eastham on 2 Jan 1734/5, and “John Holbrooks jun:” sat on the North Precinct (Wellfleet) committee in March 1740 and on its accounts committee in 1741 (MD 10:221-223; Freeman, History of Cape Cod, 2:678n). The “jun:” suggests an older John Holbrook in the precinct, which would fit Capt. John being “now of Eastham” by 1738. That last step is inference.
- 082 Oct 2026When Elisha became deacon
The Wellfleet precinct records name Elisha often: as an agent to petition the General Court in August 1747 (MD 11:75-76; Records of the North Precinct of Eastham (now Wellfleet), in The Mayflower Descendant), paid for sweeping and looking after the meeting house in 1760, and on the school committee in 1762 (MD 13:212-217). They give other deacons their title but call him plain “Elisha Holbrooks” in 1747 and 1760 and “Mr” in 1762. The Newcomb genealogy (1874, no. 692) has “Priscilla, m. Dea. Elisha Holbrook, at Wellfleet, Nov. 19, 1771.” So he was probably chosen deacon between 1763 and 1771. The church’s own records could give the date, and might hold a baptism for Gideon.
- 092 Oct 2026Capt. John’s will read in full
Read on FamilySearch (Suffolk Probate 14:111-113, docket 2547; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9Y5-4W1L and the next two images), Capt. John’s will of 12 July 1699 leaves “unto my Son John Holbrooke all my housing and Lands in the Township of Situate,” half to “his now wife Abigail” while a widow, then to “my Grandson John Holbrook the Son of my sd Son John Holbrooke,” who was to pay forty pounds “to the Six Daughters of my sd Son John Holbrooke.” That grandson is the John born at Scituate in 1686, and the clause shows that Samuel Deane’s History of Scituate (1831) was wrong to make the Scituate John a son of Capt. William. The steps from Thomas down to John (b. 1686) are closed.
- 102 Oct 2026Which Gideon was selectman?
Hurd’s History of Plymouth County (1884) lists a Gideon Holbrook as Plymouth selectman in 1817, 1818, 1819 and 1820, and the Massachusetts Pocket Almanack for 1820 has a Gideon Holbrook as one of the town’s representatives in 1819-20. A complaint to the probate court of 1 March 1819 against Edward Doten, sail maker, is signed “Gideon Holbrook, James Spooner, Wm P. Ripley, Selectmen of Plymouth” (Plymouth Probate Records 1818-1820, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L97D-8HMQ). Two Gideons lived in Plymouth then: Capt. Gideon and his nephew Gideon (1786-1868), son of Capt. Eliphalet, who was counted in 1820 as “Gideon Holbrook, Junior.” The signature has no “Jr.”, which leans toward Capt. Gideon but does not settle it. This bears on Gideon’s life, not on the line.
Where it stands
Open. Elisha’s father is recorded as Capt. John Holbrook (b. 1686): probable, about 95%, the Scituate birth documented and the identity of that Elisha with the Wellfleet deacon inferred. Gideon’s father is recorded as Elisha: compiled, probable, about 80-85%, resting on Davis and Radasch and supported by his Wellfleet birth about 1765, his long partnership with Elisha’s son Eliphalet and his sons’ names; no record names his father. His mother is taken to be Sarah (Mayo), inferred from the dates (probable). A single record naming either father would close that step. Which Gideon was selectman in 1817-1820 is still open.
Next
- The rest of the 1749 administration file for Capt. John Holbrook of Eastham (FamilySearch, Barnstable County Probate, the images after the letter of administration; free). An inventory, account or division naming Elisha as his son would close the first step.
- The Mayflower Descendant, vols 26-34 (AmericanAncestors.org or a library; these volumes are not on archive.org). The index has Elisha/Sarah at 29:13, Gideon/Sarah at 29:129 and Holbrooks at 30:73-76. A record of Elisha and Sarah’s children could be the first to name Gideon’s parents.
- The Wellfleet church records, 1730-1786, and the Wellfleet town book of births from 1763 (FamilySearch; free, but not reached by the full-text search). The date Elisha was chosen deacon, and perhaps a baptism or birth entry for Gideon.
- Eastham and Wellfleet deed copies naming Elisha’s heirs, and any sale by Gideon of Wellfleet land or rights after 1779 (FamilySearch full-text search; free; Barnstable County’s own deed books burned in 1827). A deed by Gideon as one of Elisha’s heirs would settle the second step.
- Plymouth deeds for Gideon’s house at Manomet (Plymouth County deeds). To test Mollie’s story that he came from Wellfleet with his “uncle Naaman” and inherited Naaman’s house; a deed between them could show how they were related.
- Plymouth town meeting records, 1817-1820 (FamilySearch; free). Should show which Gideon was chosen selectman and representative.
- Optional: a correction to Find a Grave memorial 40957263 (born about 1765, aged 76), so the misread 1786 stops spreading to other trees.