| Notes |
- William Pynchon:
Cemetery: Wrasbury Churchyard; Wraysbury, , , England
Will:
"My chief executor is at present absent. To Elizabeth, Mary and Rebecca Smith, daughters of my son Master Henry Smith, and to his son Elisha Smith, twenty pounds apiece, to be paid by my son Mr. Henry Smith at the time of their marriage, as he did unto Martha Smith, out of a bond which he owes me, of two hundred and twenty pounds; to my daughter Anne Amith the rest of the said bond (220li) with the overplus of interest. To the children of my daughter Margaret Davis, of Boston in New England, deceased, videlicet unto Thomas, Benjamin and William Davis, ten pounds apiece to be paid by my son Mr. Henry Smith. To my son Master John Pynchon, of Springfield in New England (a sum) out of the bond which he owes me of one hundred and six pounds, dated 15 April 1654. Whereas my son Mr. Henry Smith hath promise to pay unto me his debts which have been long due to him in New England and a horse of his at Barbadoes, for the satisfaction of an old debt that he owes me, in Quarto Vellum Book, in page 112, I bequeath them to the children of my son Master Elizur Holioke in New England &c. To the poor of Wraysberie three pounds. Son Mr. John Pynchon of Springfield in New England to be executor, to whom the residue, provided he pay to Joseph and John Pynchon and to Mary and Hetabell Pynchon twenty pounds apiece. Mr. Wickens, citizen and girdler of London, and Mr. Henry Smith of Wraysbery to be overseers. Friend Mr. John Wickens to be my executor touching the finishing of my administration business concerning the estate of Master Nicholas Ware in Virginia, whose estate is thirty pounds in a bill of exchange to Capt. Pensax and about eighteen thousand of tobacco, in several bills made over by Mr. Nicholas Ware to Capt. John Ware of Virginia &c. To beloved sister Jane Tesdall of Abington twenty pounds; to sister Susan Platt twenty pounds, as a token of my cordial love; certain clothing to Mary, Elizabeth and Rebecca Smith."
no date, published in the Historical and Genealogical Register
Notes:
William and Anna came to America with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, along with their four children. Anna died of scurvy shortly after their arrival. "His w. d. in the first season, bef. ret. of the sh. [ship] in wh.[which] they came."
William was elected assistant and treasurer of the colony, and helped start a new settlement at Roxbury, MA. He married the widow Frances Samford in about 1632, the mother of his future son-in-law Henry Smith. A couple of years later William and some other men decided to move westward to what is now known as Springfield, MA. At that time the area was under the jurisdiction of Connecticut.
"In … [1635], Mr. Pynchon, Henry Smith, Jehu Burr, and probably, some others, came to this place, called by the Indians Agawam, and began to build a house on the west side of the [Connecticut] river, on the Agawam, in the meadow, called from that fact House meadow. The Indians, seeing this, and being perfectly friendly, informed them that the house would be exposed to the flood, and they abandoned it, and came and built a house on the east side of the river… It is supposed they returned to Roxbury in the fall." These men purchased Aggawam from the Indians for "18 fathoms of wampum , 18 coats, 18 hatchets, 18 hoes, and 18 knives."
In the spring of 1636 William and eight families: Matthew Mitchell, Henry Smith, Jehu Burr, William Blake, Edmund Wood, Thomas Ufford, and John Cable moved to Springfield. The settlement was founded to take advantage of fur trading along the Connecticut River. William ran his town pretty much as he pleased and had a good relationship with the Indians.
In 1650 William wrote a book about justification and redemption. The General Court of Massachusetts passed a resolution condemning the book and demanded William to retract his statements. It was said at the time that the title page itself was sufficient to prove heresy.(see below) The book was ordered burned. Supposedly only four copies escaped the flames, one of which is in the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. In May of 1651, William appeared before the General Court to answer its charges.
After meeting with three clergymen appointed by the Court, Pynchon retracted some, but not all, of his statements. He was sent back to Springfield in a 'hopeful way' to reconsider his views. He transferred all his lands and property in Springfield to his son, and sometime in 1652 he and Frances departed for England, as did his daughter Ann and Henry Smith. There William continued to write religious tracts and pamphlets.
ref: springfieldlibrary.org:
"The Samuel Chapin Genealogy", pg. 260
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shopefamily/Tree/famf407.html
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William Pynchon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Pynchon (October 11, 1590 – October 29, 1662) was an English colonist and fur trader in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the iconoclastic author of the New World's first banned book. An original settler of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Pynchon became dissatisfied with that town's notoriously rocky soil and in 1635, led the initial settlement expedition to Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, where he found exceptionally fertile soil and a fine spot for conducting trade. In 1636, he returned to officially purchase its land, then known as "Agawam." In 1640, Springfield was officially renamed after Pynchon's home village, now a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex, England — due to Pynchon's grace following a dispute with Hartford, Connecticut's Captain John Mason over, essentially, whether to treat local natives as friends or enemies. (Pynchon was a man of peace and also very business-minded — thus he advocated for friendship with the region's natives.) Pynchon's stance led to Springfield aligning with the faraway government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony rather than the more geographically and ideologically compatible Connecticut Colony.
Contents [hide]
1 Founding of Cities
2 Books
3 Notes
4 Sources
5 Further reading
Founding of Cities[edit]
William Pynchon was one of New England's first and most business-minded settlers. In founding Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1630, Pynchon settled land near a narrow isthmus, which was necessary to cross in order to reach the Port of Boston — thus all of Massachusetts' mainland trade needed to pass through his town. Unfortunately, Roxbury — originally named "Rocksbury" for its rocky soil — was a poor site on which to farm in comparison to the fertile Connecticut River Valley. Thus in 1635, Pynchon carefully scouted out the Connecticut River Valley for its best location to both farm and conduct business. Happily, he discovered that its best location had not yet been settled. In locating the land that would become the City of Springfield, Pynchon found land just north of the Connecticut River's first large falls, the Enfield Falls, which was the river's northern terminus navigable by seagoing ships. By founding Springfield where Pynchon did, much of the Connecticut River's traffic would have to either begin, end, or cross his settlement. Additionally, the land that would become Springfield was inarguably among the most fertile for farming in New England — and its Natives were initially friendly, unlike those near southerly Connecticut River settlements such as Hartford.
Earlier settlers of the Connecticut River Valley — who then resided in the three Connecticut settlements at Wethersfield, Hartford and Windsor — had been primarily religious-minded and did not judge land for settlement in the shrewd terms that Pynchon did. Perhaps most strategically of all, Pynchon's settlement was located equidistant to the New World's (then) two most important ports, Boston and Albany, with Native roads already cleared to both places. Springfield could not have been better situated — and currently, as Springfield is the Connecticut River Valley's most populous city, history seems to have vindicated Pynchon's original assessment of the land.[1][2]
In founding "The Great River's" northernmost settlement, Pynchon sought to enhance the trading links with upstream Native peoples such as the Pocumtucks, and over the next generation he built Springfield into a thriving trade town and made a fortune, personally. As noted above, after disagreements with Captain John Mason and later Thomas Hooker about how to treat the native population (Pynchon was a man of peace and Springfield's natives were friendly, whereas Hartford's natives were warlike and thus Connecticut's settlers chose to treat them as enemies rather than friends.) Pynchon believed that Connecticut's policy of intimidating and brutalizing natives was not only unconscionable, but bad for business. After Pynchon became disaffected with the Connecticut Colony, he annexed Springfield to Massachusetts Bay Colony, confirming that colony's western and southwestern boundaries.
Pynchon built a warehouse in what was once Springfield, but is present-day East Windsor, Connecticut, known as Warehouse Point — and to this day, it still bears the name. In the years 1636-1652, Pynchon exported between 4,000 to 6,000 beaver pelts a year from that location, and also was the New World's first commercial meat packer, exporting pork products.[3] The profits from these endeavors enabled him to retire to England as a very wealthy man.[4]
Books[edit]
In 1649, William Pynchon found time to write a critique of his place and times' dominant religious doctrine, Puritanical Calvinism, entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption. Published in London in 1650, it quickly reached Boston and caused a sensation. Pynchon was one of Massachusetts' wealthiest and most important men, and in his book — which refuted Puritan theology by claiming that obedience, rather than punishment and suffering, was the price of atonement — was immediately burned on the Boston Common, (only 4 copies survived,) and soon after became the New World's first-ever banned book. Officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally accused Pynchon of heresy and demanded that he retract its argument. Coincidentally, Pynchon's court date took place on the same day and at the same place that the New World's first witch trial — that of Hugh and Mary Parsons of Springfield — took place. Instead of retracting his arguments, Pynchon stealthily transferred his land holdings to his son John — who later became an equally large influence in Springfield — while William Pynchon returned to England in 1652, where he remained for the rest of his life.[5]
After Pynchon's return to England, his son John extended his father's settlements in the Connecticut River Valley northward, founding Northampton, Westfield, Hadley, and other towns. His daughter, Mary Pynchon, married Elizur Holyoke, after whom the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts and the nearby Holyoke Range are named.
William Pynchon is an ancestor of the novelist Thomas Pynchon.
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ http://ourpluralhistory.stcc.edu/colonialperiod/williampynchon.html
Jump up ^ http://www.americancenturies.mass.edu/people_places/view.jsp?itemtype=2&id=245
Jump up ^ http://springfield375.org/?p=126
Jump up ^ Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England, Diana Muir, p. 31-2
Jump up ^ Henry M. Burt. The First Century of the History of Springfield. Henry M. Burt (1898), Vol. I, p. 12.
Sources[edit]
Chr.G.F. de Jong, “Christ’s descent” in Massachusetts. The doctrine of justification according to William Pynchon (1590-1662), in: Gericht Verleden. Kerkhistorische opstellen aangeboden aan prof. dr. W. Nijenhuis ter gelegenheid van zijn vijfenzeventigste verjaardag; ed. by dr. Chr.G.F. de Jong & dr J. van Sluis (1991) 129–158 [pub: Leiden, J.J. Groen & Son]
See also: http://members.home.nl/cgf.de.jong/
Further reading[edit]
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/pynchon.html
BIRTH: Also shown as Born Springfield, Essex, England.
BIRTH: Also shown as Born of Springfield, Essex, England.
DEATH: Also shown as Died Wyrardisbury, Buckinghamshire, England.
DEATH: Also shown as Died Wraisbury, Buckinghamshire, England.
BURIAL: Also shown as Buried 4 Oct 1662
BURIAL: Also shown as Buried 29 Oct 1622
PREFIX: Also shown as Gov.
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1590 - 1662 (72 years)