This book is an excellent resource for people researching ancestors who came to New England before 1692. The "Preface" and "Description of Abbreviations" provides insight into James Savages goals in addition to being an interesting snippet of history. The "List of Abbreviations" will be of particular interest to those people who request information on a surname or person.
The following text was borrowed from Banner Blue Software CD #149.
On this page:
VOL 1 DICT. FIRST SETTLERS OF N.E. - JAMES SAVAGE
GENEALOGICAL DICTIONARY
of
THE FIRST SETTLERS OF NEW ENGLAND,
SHOWING
THREE GENERATIONS
OF
THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE MAY, 1692,
ON THE
BASIS OF FARMER'S REGISTER.
BY
JAMES SAVAGE,
FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AND EDITOR OF WINTHROP'S HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.
WITH TWO SUPPLEMENTS
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
Baltimore
GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING CO., INC.
Originally Published
Boston, 1860-1862
Reprinted with,
"Genealogical Notes and Errata,"
excerpted from
The New England Historical
and Genealogical Register,
Vol. XXVII, No. 2, April, 1873,
pp. 135-139
And
A Genealogical Cross Index
of the Four Volumes
of the Genealogical Dictionary
of James Savage,
by O. P. Dexter, 1884.
Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.
Baltimore,
1965,1969,1977,1981,1986, 1990
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 65-18541
International Standard Book Number: 0-8063-0309-3
Set Number: 0-8063-0795
Made in the United States of America
PREFACE
SOME explanatory introduction to so copious a work, as the following, will naturally be required; but it may be short. In 1829 was published, by John Farmer, a Genealogical Register of the first settlers of New England. Beside the five classes of persons prominent, as Governors, Deputy-Governors, Assistants, ministers in all the Colonies, and representatives in that of Massachusetts, down to 1692, it embraced graduates of Harvard College to 1662, members of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, as also freemen admitted in Massachusetts, alone, to this latter date, with many early inhabitants of other parts of New England and Long Island from 1620 to 1675. Extensive as was the plan of that volume., the author had in contemplation, as explained in his preface, calling it "an introduction to a biographical and genealogical dictionary, "a more ambitious work, that should comprehend sketches of individuals known in the annals of New England, and "a continuation of eminent persons to the present time." Much too vast a project that appeared to me; and the fixing of an absolute limit, like 1692 (the era of arrival of the new charter), for admission of any family stocks, seemed more judicious. I suppose nineteen twentieths of the people of these New England colonies in 1775 were descendants of those found here in 1692, and probably seven eighths of them were offspring of the settlers before 1642.My scope is wider than that of Farmer, of course, as it includes every settler, without regard to his rank, or wealth, since we often find, in the second or third generation, descendants of the most humble (thank God we are all equal before the law) filling honorable stations and performing important services. But far more narrow is my plan than his projected dictionary, because, in a grandson of the first settler, it excludes every other incident after his birth. Space for another than is here given, would have demanded six volumes, while ten volumes would have been needed for a fifth generation; and since we now count eight, nine, or even ten generations of offspring from not a few of the earlier planters on our shores, fifty volumes, each as ponderous as the present, might be filled with details, whereof one tenth would seem ridiculous, one quarter worthless, and one half wholly uninteresting.
That New England was first occupied by a civilized people in so short a period before the great civil war broke out in our mother country, though half a century and more after its elementary principles began to ferment, especially in Parliament, and almost in every parish of the kingdom, was a very fortunate event, if it may not be thought a providential arrangement for the happiness of mankind. Even if our views be restricted to the lineal origin of those people here, when the long protracted impolicy of Great Britain drove our fathers into open hostility and forced them to become a nation in 1776, in that century and a half from its colonization, a purer Anglo Saxon race would be seen on this side of the ocean than on the other. Within forty years a vast influx of Irish, with not a few thousand Scotch and Germans has spread over this new country, but certainly more than four fifths of our people still count their progenitors among the ante-revolutionary colonists. From long and careful research I have judged the proportion of the whole number living here in 1775, that deduce their origin from the kingdom of England, i.e. the Southern part of Great Britain, excluding also the principality of Wales, to exceed ninety-eight in a hundred. Every county, from Northcumberland to Cornwall, Kent to Cumberland, sent its contribution of emigrants, and the sparse population of the narrow shire of Rutland had more than one offshoot in New England. But, during that interval, great was the diversity of circumstances between the old and the new country so far as the increase of their respective numbers by incoming of strangers was affected. In 1660 the restoration of Charles II.--in 1685 the expulsion of the two modern labors of distinguished antiquaries furnish us almost in full their early records; and more than nine tenths of the names in these separate communities, I think, must have been acquired for this work. But even in my native city of Boston three or four in a thousand may have escaped me, yet probably in the second or third ages from its foundation.
For the time of births, marriages, or deaths in each family I have labored assiduously to be correct, in hundreds of cases finding wrong dates given, and commonly without hesitation supplying the true. Where baptism is fixed, by a decent record, weeks, and even months before the date of birth, no fear of injuring the town clerk's credit can restrain belief in his mistake. But the copious source of vexation is the variety growing out of the Old and New Styles. In many thousand instances, I have turned to the perpetual almanac, to be sure that the day of baptism was truly, or not, recorded for Sunday, since the rite could, in the first century of New England, be performed only on that day. By this many printed errors may be corrected. As children are often seen to be baptized in January or February of the same year, by the ancient legal reckoning, that gives the parents' marriage in April or May, several weeks before, in our modern reckoning of the months, instead of so many months after, it is easy enough to put that right by calling those winter months not the eleventh and twelfth of the old year, as the statute absurdity required. Uniformly my chronology begins the year with 1 January; but to produce harmony between dates for the month of March is sometimes very difficult. A few town officers began to change the numerals for the year with the opening of the month, daring to ask, why the first month of 1679 should allow 24 of its 31 days to be drilled under old 1678, while the perverse will of the rulers in fatherland postponed the new-year's day until the 25th; and some records may be found, where the year ended in December; but this monstrous innovation did not begin before 1700, and the startling truth made irregular progress up to 1752, when Lord Macclesfield enlightened the legislature, and Chesterfield charmed it into consistency.
No apology would be necessary for filling room with enumeration of contributions from many friends other than such as are nance and aid of His Excellency, E. Everett, then our minister at London, no trace could be found, except in his signature to the rules on taking his degrees at the University, when he is titled of Middlesex. Perhaps out of such research sprang my resolution to prosecute the genealogical pursuits of John Farmer.
In fulfillment of this great undertaking more than fifteen years are already bestowed, and near two years longer may be necessary. Yet the rule imposed, of admitting upon these pages only the dates of birth and marriage, and names of children, of a child born on our side of the ocean to a settler whose tent was pitched here before May 1692, is severely adhered to, with the exception only of so distinguished a man as Cotton Mather; and even this variety may seem forced upon me by Farmer, who had received him to the copious honors of marriage and family. Yet, in many cases, will be named great grandchildren of first comers, and even in a very few, another generation, making a fifth. Explanation of this apparent deviation from my own law is easy. When Gov. Bradford and Gov. Winthrop came here, each brought a son, or sons, and the same is seen of Gov. Dudley and numberless others. Now each child must be rated as an emigrant no less than its father, so that John Brad. ford, John and Adam Winthrop, and Samuel Dudley are equally entitled as their parents to have their grandchildren entered in these pages; but William and Joseph Bradford, and Jaseph Dudley, sons of the Govs. born on our side of the water, shall not have grandchildren in their respective lines.
My apparatus for this work will sometimes be found incomplete, yet to a great extent, the public records of Colonies, Counties, and towns, where accessible, have been examined by myself or friends. Of the first ten folio volumes of our Suffolk registry of deeds I had an abstract always lying near me, and these embraced near one third of all the names of New England and more than half those in Massachusetts Colony; indeed for very many years, after the emigration from Europe ceased, only two other counties, Essex and Middlesex had been constituted. lt will be recollected, that large parts of Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine were occupied by those who removed from Massachusetts, as was almost the whole of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven colonies. But open to all in printed volumes; but much of what is now within every one's reach had been furnished in MS. to me, and still more is from the same hands, in many cases, given first to the light on my pages. Our town histories are crowding forward, and sometimes in less compact space than might be wished. Windsor, though its History is large, has not equalled ancient Woodbury in bulk, yet seems to contain all, with three-fold of the interest, that might have contented us in the other. The point of research may occupy long time, and be expressed at last in brief phrase, so that no comparison can be made between the result in different parts of the same field of battle from taking only the numbers engaged in each. One initial letter in this dictionary required a year and a quarter for its complete preparation, more than three months were given to each of several names, like Hall or Williams, and the progress of a page has often demanded a week. It seemed my duty to expose every error in our genealogy that has got imbedded in any reputable book; and the suspicion of any such may lead to a long train of inquiries before the refutation can be reached. If my success has been less than my ambition, it has not been owing to lack of industry, or to hurried operation. Printing of the first volume began in Dec. 1858, and was prosecuted without interruption of a day to this time; while for the next volume the careful amanuensis has ready for the compositor two hundred pages, a part of which will be given to the press to-morrow. For the access of new information that reaches us almost every month, a constant watch is kept; and life and health being continued, my contract with the community may be decently discharged in the autumn of 1861.
A very extensive catalogue of gentlemen, that might be graced by one of more than half a dozen ladies, could here be supplied, were it useful to mention the smaller as well as the greater contributors to these sheets. To Goodwin, Bond, Harris, father and son, Kingsley, Abbot, Day, Shattuck, Lunt, and Kilbourne, of the respectable file who have passed out of active service, it would not be easy to state the respective proportions of indebtedness; nor could I specify the ratio of benefit derived in my pages from benevolence of the living Babson, Boltwood, Brayton, Budington, Clapp, Day, Edwards, Felt, Field, Herrick, Hoadley, Jackson, Judd, Kelly, King, Kellogg, Lincoln, Locke, Otis, Paige, Patterson, Riker, Sargent, Sewall, Shurtleff, R. D. Smith of Guilford, Staples, Vinton, Wentworth, Whitmore, Willard, Wyman, and twice as many more. Not one of the living or dead could complain of my declaration, that from the distinguished antiquary of Northampton the acquisition exceeds that of any other ten contributors. Early in 1846 I had solicited the benefit of uniting his name with mine in producing these volumes; but while he shrank from the responsibility of such unbroken labor, I can offer several hundred pages of letters to vouch for his sympathy, and encourage my perseverance.
19 APRIL, 1860.
DESCRIPTION OF ABBREVIATIONS
BY the number of more or less imperfect words, that can be not much less than three hundred thousand in these volumes, very great saving, of space was expected. Caution was given me, in the Genealog. Reg. XII. 362 against thewoeful disfiguring that would follow, if the specimen, offered by the publishers toattract subscribers, were to be taken for a sample. As most of these curtailments were common however in similar works, I dared to adhere to the plan, which has not,perhaps, repelled a dozen patrons; and even enlarged my list by addition of one that would occur about two thousand limes. The word freeman, or freemen, may be seen, in its new shape, freem. without offence, I hope, to the taste of any subscriber.Familiar to all readers must be the short form given to our names of the months, nine in twelve, only May, June, and July having their whole beauty; and yet of these nine words the recurrence would probably show the mutilations on my pages to be fifteen or twenty thousand. Titles are always permitted even in other books to appear in brief, as Gov. or Esq. and when rep. may stand for representative, most who turn over a dictionary of this sort will approve the economy. It may happen that, by the accident of the printer's type, or my own carelessness, some word may be abbreviated that had better been printed in full, yet I submit, that the page will be seldom disfigured by such liberty, and probably the reader would not change more than once in five hundred examples. Confusion will not be caused so often as that, I hope; but if a pause be necessary, we all feel the same thing in turning to an English dictionary for definition of words only. Nobody reads continuously from page to page, even in the affluent vocabulary of Johnson; and when a sincere desire to verify a genealogy, or ascertain a special relationship, is felt, the time will not be grudgingly reckoned, if a sentence be not printed out in every word, but with one third or more of those words curtailed. In the following list every word thus abbrev. may not be found, because the shortening may by a judicious reader he referred to: class comprising many, as the adverbial terminations, ly, bly, wanting after casi. and honora.; or the perfect tense or parti- ciples of verbs, ed; or in substantives, er and ent.; or in either part of speech, ensu. mak. preced. and tak. without ing or en. For many having, different meanings, as ch. for child, or children, or church; d. for death, died, or daughter; gr. for grand, great, grant, or graduate; mo. for mother or month, the one intended may be trusted to the student's sagacity.But occasions of error in names of men or women I have scrupulously avoided, so that only one surname can be seen in my pages to be abbrev. and but a single name of bapt. Eliz. can hardly be mistaken, nor will the lamentation be loud, when a man's name so distinguished as that of the first Gov. of Mass. is spelled Winth. Geographi- cal designations are forever meeting our eyes in briefer form than the legal one; and he has poor supply of current letters that requires to be told what shires in Eng. are meant by Bucks, Herts, or Notts.
VOL. I. B
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
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with a few dozen others, that need not to be particularly mentioned, as the reader, without a compliment, may be presumed to supply meaning for himself to marks of frequent use, like points of the compass.
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