July 2, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on the genealogy of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, focusing on the Amos, Pells and Bearse family lines. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I continue my “Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe” series, featuring Mayflower descendants who married into Mashpee Wampanoag families.
To recap: My series on the Mayflower lines of Katie Crocker of Barnstable, Massachusetts, has featured a rare account book connected to the business of Zenas Crocker (1761-1807) and his descendants.
The Crocker account book includes residents of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and the Cahoon Museum in Cotuit, Massachusetts, granted me permission to share the account book’s pages and do further research. (For previous stories see the links listed at the end of this article.)
In part 7 I covered two Pilgrim scions, Charles Churchill Bearse and his wife Penelope Percival Crocker.
Nathaniel D. S. Bearse
Today my subject is a cousin, Civil War soldier Nathaniel D. S. Bearse (1842-1928), who married Olive Gould Pells (1844-1910), a member of the Wampanoag people.
This is a photo of Nathaniel, a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins, Thomas Rogers, John Howland, and Elizabeth Tilley. He was a town selectman in Mashpee, Massachusetts, and deacon to the Mahpee Indian Church for 50 years.
Nathaniel and his wife are identified in this lineage chart compiled by Christopher C. Child, author and genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) from his post, “Civil War Soldiers of Mashpee.”
Military Record
I found some newspaper clips listing Nathaniel for military service. He is recorded on the roster of soldiers provided to the press by Lieutenant Charles H. Tobey in 1864.
In 1865 he is listed in the same regiment in Company E.
Read more on Nathaniel’s military history at “The Magnifying Glass: Bearing His Country’s Cause.”
Wampanoag Connection
Nathaniel married Olive Gould Pells in Mashpee on 29 October 1863. She is the daughter of Jacob Asher and Mary Rose (DeGrasse) Pells.
Below is a photo of their four married daughters including Christine, who is listed on the above lineage chart compiled by Christopher C. Child. In this photo we see (seated left to right): Christine (Bearse) Oakley, Flora (Bearse) Amos, Mary (Bearse) Cowett; (standing left to right): unidentified family friend, Lois (Bearse) Newcomb.
Below is an obituary for Christine’s husband Irving Westley Coombs Oakley, son of George Thomas and Betsy Jones (Attaquin) Oakley. He died on 14 November 1934.
This article reads:
MASHPEE, Nov. 14 – Funeral services for Irving C. Oakley, 65, a guide for President Grover Cleveland and Gov. William E. Russell on many hunting and fishing trips in Cape woods, will be held tomorrow at 2 P. M. at his home here. Burial will be in the Old Indian cemetery.
Mr. Oakley died of a heart attack Monday night at his home. A descendant of the Wampanoag Indians, he followed the sea as a young man and later entered the cranberry business building several large cranberry bogs in Carver. For three terms he was an assessor of Mashpee and during the past decade operated Mashpee’s only store.
He leaves his widow, Mrs. Christine Bearse Oakley; four sons, Allen of Boston, Ellsworth of Onset, and George and Irving Jr. of Mashpee; and two daughters, Mrs. Emma O. Mills and Mrs. Minnie DeGreasse of Bournedale. He leaves two great grandchildren.
Below is a photo of Christine and Irving’s son Ellsworth Raymond Oakley (1904-1976), aka Chief “Drifting Goose.” He married Edella “Della” Azevedo and left descendants.
I found an obituary for Nathaniel and Catherine’s daughter Flora E. (Bearse) Amos, who died 4 January 1946.
This article reads:
Mashpee Town Clerk, Mrs. Flora Amos, Dead
MASHPEE, Jan. 5 – Mrs. Flora E. Amos, 82, Mashpee town clerk for the past 15 years and assistant postmaster 55 years, died here at her home late last night.
A native of Mashpee, she served in the local post office under her husband, the late Lysander B. Amos, and later under her son Edmund. As town clerk she was first in the state to report returns in several national and state elections. She was for 65 years a member of the Old Indian Church of which she was long a trustee.
Stay tuned for more on this family line!
Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial
Note on the header image: Ousamequin, or “Massasoit” (Wampanoag term for “Great Sachem”) and Governor John Carver smoking a ceremonial pipe at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Credit: Sutro Library; Wikimedia Commons.
Related Articles:
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 9)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 10)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 11)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 12)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 1)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 2)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 3)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 4)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 5)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 6)
- Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 7)
- Richard Bourne: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
- Thomas Tupper: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
- “Mayflower Descendant: A Journal of Pilgrim Genealogy & History,” Volume 68, No. 1, Winter 2020
Very interesting. I am a Mayflower descendant which is not terribly unusual for people born in New England. I wondered how people on the Mayflower found spouses. They could have been too closely related if they just married among themselves. Glad they found some Native Americans who were willing to marry them.
Thanks for the feedback and sharing Martha! Stay tuned for more!
I wonder what is the significance of the crossed out entries in the pdf? Would that have been done at the time by the author?
I ask because my family has an account book from 1701 by the Pennsylvania German immigrant Hans Stauffer. It has similar “Xs.” One scholar that looked at it thought it was done by a disrespectful translator.
Lorra,
I believe the archives noted it was to establish completion, account closed, paid in full, etc.
I Am a descendant of Stephen Hopkins. My 8th Great Grandmother is listed as Rachel WAMPPNOAG. I am not at home and don’t currently have access to my research records. I believe she married a James Baker. Would Rachel have had a different “surname”? Just wondering.
My mother’s side of the family were on the Mayflower. But her great great grandmother was Native American.
Thanks for sharing Alice. Stay tuned for more on this series!
Very interesting!
Thank you Mary Ann! I appreciate it. Stay tuned.
Do you have any information on the Crowell family?
Liza I will be covering the family in a future story. If you need assistance with research you can visit my website listed below. Thank you!