The Ancestry
of Thomas Hastings of Watertown, Mass.©
by Scott Hastings-Billigmeier
The accepted ancestry of Deacon Thomas Hastings (c1605-1685) has
long needed the scrutiny of a focused, probing eye. If one looks past
the generous assumptions of the past century, we see more gaps than
facts. Regrettably, in this article at least, I can only hope to shore
up the ratio; Eliminate the improbable but not conclusively prove its
opposite.
It has long been thought that Thomas Hastings descended from the
aristocratic Hastings family of Leicestershire, England. Two of the
most notable proponents of this theory have been Lydia Nelson
(Hastings) Buckminster in her 1866 genealogy, The Hastings Memorial,
and Professor Herbert Baxter Adams in his 1880 Genealogy, The
History of the Thomas Adams and Thomas Hastings Families of Amherst,
Massachusetts.
These and many other publications, both family specific and
general New England, have forwarded this line of descent as fact. The
most oft repeated version says that, "George, the 3rd Lord
Hastings, was, in 1529, created Earl of Huntingdon. Sir Henry and
George, grandsons of the Earl of Huntingdon, had sons who became
puritans, and were obliged to leave their native land and find homes
in the New World. As early as 1634, we find Thomas Hastings and wife
had arrived on this shore; and in 1638 John* and family
followed."
(L.N. Buckminster, The Hastings Memorial, A Genealogical
Account of the Descendants of Thomas Hastings of Watertown, Mass. from
1634 to 1864, Boston, 5-6).
It is important at this point, where claims begin to collide, to
delineate between what can be proved and what cannot. Given the
period, there is much we may never know for sure. While fair weight
should be given to verbal record, it is better to rely on surviving
documentation. I have chosen, for simplicity sake, to organize my
findings under two basic headings: Fact and Conjecture.
I. Fact
We know that Sir Henry Hastings (1535-1595), the 3rd Earl of
Huntingdon, died without issue ten years before the birth of Thomas
the immigrant. Sir George (?-1604), his brother and the 4th Earl,
married Dorothy Port and had issue: Lord Francis, Sir Edward (died
without issue), Catherine, Dorothy, William (died without issue), Hon.
Henry. Again, Sir George died near or before the birth of Thomas and
had no recorded child by that name. (Henry Nugent Bell, Esq., The
Huntingdon Peerage, London, 1821).
The names of the 4th Earl's grandchildren, via sons Francis and
Henry, also show no Thomas. (The Huntingdon Peerage and Claire
Cross' The Puritan Earl, The Life of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of
Huntingdon, New York, 1966).
In fact, while the name Thomas occurs with reasonable frequency
in the preceding history of this family, there are none by that name
in this line (unaccounted for) since about 1500. A corollary survey of
surviving records of births and marriages at the Leicestershire County
Records Office (hereafter referred to as LRO) revealed no feasible
candidates that could be Thomas the immigrant.*
A far broader search of English records using the Mormon
Church's International Genealogical Index (IGI), 1992 version, also
fails to support the Leicestershire link. There are two interesting,
but nonetheless erroneous, entries in this latest iteration however.
In Leicestershire an entry has been made for a Thomas Hastings,
annotated as "altered from source" that lists him as being
born in 1605 and related to a Warren S. Snow. This information does
not come from original parish records and probably results from some
misinterpretation of secondary source material. Misinterpretation is
definitely the case for a similar entry made on the Essex fiche. Here,
Thomas Hastings, "of Ipswich", is listed as being born in
1605 and as the spouse of Margaret Cheney. This information was
clearly derived from a superficial reading of the Hastings Memorial.
The IGI does, however, identify some East Anglians of that era
that do fit the general description of Thomas the immigrant. Since
East Anglia and Northern Essex provided most of the early settlers,
this seems a logical place to look. According to the IGI (which is
only as reliable as the data that it receives and is not a complete
historical archive--many records have been lost or destroyed through
the centuries) the following lived in the County of Norfolk during the
reigns of Elizabeth I and James I:
- Thomas, son of Thomas and Mary(e) (Ryell) Hastenes or
Hastings, was Chr. 28 Sept 1608 at Witton, near Walsham. His
parents were married there on 16 Aug 1603. There is no further
reference to this Thomas in the IGI. This may indicate that he
immigrated although we know that he was married before he left. In
anycase, this stands out as the best lead available and deserves
closer investigation.
- Thomas, son of Thomas and Jhonne Hastyngs, was Chr. on 28
Sept 1600, also at Witton.
- Thomas Hastings married Jane Ladle on 10 May 1624 at West
Rayham. It is thought that Susan(na) was the first wife of Thomas
but this could conceivably (but not likely) be an incorrect
assumption.
- Thomas Hastings married Cicilia Daughty in 1574 at Bacton.
There are no listings of a Thomas Hastings in Bacton after this
point.
- The Hastings family of Attleborough had son's born there and
named Thomas through at least 1657. Dates, where available, were
not in reasonable proximity to the year 1605.
Surprisingly, no likely candidates were discovered in the nearby
counties of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk or Essex; The latter two being the
largest suppliers of immigrants to Watertown. Cambridgeshire is
identified by a modern genealogist and author. Carol Clark Johnson
forwarded the following theory in her 1970 Hastings related genealogy:
- John Hastings of Little Eversden, Cambridgeshire, is believed
by circumstantial evidence to be the father of Thomas although the
parish records covering 1605 were missing and he has no recorded
child by this name. Her contention is based largely on the
occurance of the common names John and William in John’s family
and that of Thomas the immigrant. She further claims that John is
a likely descendent of Sir Robert Hastings (fl. 1250), Steward to
the Earl of Oxford. (Carol Clark Johnson’s, A Genealogical
History of the Clark and Worth Families, and other Puritan
Settlers in the Massachusetts Bay, 1970). [Author's
Note: I visited this village in 1996. It is very tiny
and seemingly unchanged for centuries. There is no sign of
any commercial activity other than agriculture. If (and a
big IF it is) Thomas Hastings came from this village he was almost
certainly a farmer of common means. The fact that he was
highly literate seems inconsistent but could be attributed to the
village's close proximity to Cambridge University.
Personally, I think this link is a speculative as any other set
fourth for him].
The IGI also gives some valuable information on the geographical
dispersion of the surname. We know that the Midlands and East Anglia
regions each have relatively dense and aristocratic concentrations of
Hastings'. It is also widley accepted that these "branches"
of the family were of the same Sussex stock. They split sometime in
the 12th Century; The Midlands branch eventually earning the title
Earls of Huntingdon (among others) and the East Anglians becoming the
Earls of Pembroke. (The Huntingdon Papers, The Archives of the
Noble Family of Hastings, London, 1826, XV). What the IGI provides
is a good county by county breakout of where this fairly uncommon
surname is most common. The most dense concentrations (covering
several centuries) were found in Berkshire, Cumberland, Derbyshire,
Devonshire, Durham, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Lancashire,
Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, City of London, Norfolk, Northumberland,
Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Warwickshire, and Yorkshire.
Thomas Hastings sailed from Ipswich, Suffolk with his wife
Susan(na). The roads of that country, even then, were much better
suited for north-south travel. A Leicestershire man would almost
certainly choose to depart from London. The fact that he sailed from
an eastern port, while not conclusive, does not lend support to his
purported Midland roots.
Not only did he choose an eastern port, but his shipmates (at
least those that could be traced) on the Elizabeth that Spring of
1634, were almost exclusively of eastern stock.* As we know, people at
that time tended to enter into this great adventure with neighbors and
kinfolk from their general area. No passengers have been identified
from the midlands.
Thomas arrived in Watertown with no noble title or other mark of
distinction (such as "Mr." which denoted later gentlemen
like William Goddard). He is often referred to in Watertown records as
"Deacon Hastings," a not uncommon recognition of religious
leadership. While it denotes a certain elevated standing in the
community, it does not equate to the standing of a family like the
Leicestershire Hastings. (Watertown Records Comprising the Third
Book of Town Proceedings and the Second Book of Births, Marriages and
Deaths to the end of 1737, Watertown, 1900, and Dr. Henry
Bond's, Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early
Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, Vol. 1 & 2, Boston, 1855).
Deacon Hastings married (2nd) Margaret Cheney (1628-c1690) of
Roxbury, and had issue: Thomas, John, William, Joseph, Benjamin,
Nathaniel, Hepzibah and Samuel. These names do not correlate with any
particular branch of the Leicestershire Hastings descending from
George, the 1st Earl. Their children married into the following
families of East Anglian descent:
Coolidge (Cottenham, Cambs.); Bond (prob. Bury St. Edmunds, Suff.);
Hammond (Lavenham, Suff.); Rice (Bury St. Edmunds or Berkhamsted);
Hawkes (?); Woodward (worked in Suff.); Graves (?); Church (?);
Nevinson (E. Horsley, Surrey).
The early settlers of Watertown were largely (approximately 68%)
from the counties of East Anglia. The Midlands, of which
Leicestershire is a part, accounted for a statistically tiny
percentage of the population. The odds are greatly against Thomas
having come from the latter. (David H. Fischer, Albion's Seed, Four
British Folkways in America, Oxford, 1989, 36).
At his death, the estate of Thomas Hastings was comfortable but
not vast. He left less than one would reasonable expect (even assuming
he wasn't the first born son) given his supposed aristocratic
parentage. (The Hastings Memorial, 6).
II. Conjecture
There is a strong oral tradition in the family that says that
the immigrant Thomas brought his coat of arms (identical to that
claimed by the Earls of Huntingdon) to America engraved on a copper
plate. The plate was passed down through the line of the oldest son
until it reached Dr. Seth Hastings, Jr. The plate was lost by a
brother of Dr. Hastings sometime between 1835-1840. This story could
be an important clue but, unfortunately, it proves nothing. If Thomas
did indeed bring the engraving from England it could mean that he was
somehow linked to the Leicestershire Hastings; Perhaps descending from
some lesser known branch. On the other hand, it is not unknown for a
family coming to America, hoping to impress their new neighbors, to
falsely claim noble birth. Ultimately, the weight of this family
tradition is open to debate. (Francis H. Hastings, Family Record of
Dr. Seth Hastings, Sr., of Clinton, Oneida County, NY, Cincinnati,
1899, 5-6)
There may also be some meaning in the fact that the
Leicestershire Hastings and immigrant Thomas were both active in the
puritan cause. It would be hard to read too much into this however
since puritanism was sweeping England in the early 1600's. (Edmund
S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma,
The Story of John Winthrop, Boston, 1958).
To conclude this recitation of the sure and the unsure, we must
recognize that there will be no easy solution to the puzzle. The
ravages of time may have erased the one piece for which we look.
Nonetheless, the slate of innocent and perhaps wishful errors has been
wiped clean; It is time again to reflect. Thomas Hastings was
undoubtedly a strong and righteous force in his community--of that we
can be sure. Maybe, in the end, that is as much certainty as we will
ever have.
Written by:
Scott Billigmeier
SBmeier@outlook.com
© Personal use is authorized, however,
author reserves all other rights of use. Please request
permission before reproducing or otherwise conveying this material to
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