January 15, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry gives the 13th part in her series on Mayflower descendants that focuses on Katie Crocker and her family line, featuring photos from the Zenas Crocker Collection, which is housed at the Sturgis Public Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I resume with my series “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” again focusing on the lineage of the Crocker family, who married into several Mayflower family lines.
To recap: You can view the many articles already published of my research on Katie Crocker, daughter of James and Debra Sue (Pemberton) Crocker of Barnstable, Massachusetts, which includes several Mayflower passengers, Stephen Hopkins, Henry Samson, Elizabeth Tilley, Francis Cook, Esther/Hester Mahieu, John Howland, and Edward Winslow, by clicking on the links at the end of this article.
The Crocker’s were and still are a prominent family in Cape Cod and married into some of the oldest families of Plymouth.
Recently I covered a story on Edward Bangs, aka “The Pilgrim,” and found a connection in Katie’s tree: a daughter Bethia Bangs (1650-1696) married Gershom Hall (1648-1732); their daughter Bethia Hall married Kenelm Winslow; their son Kenelm Winslow married Zerviah Rider; and their daughter, Katie’s 6th great grandmother Zerviah Winslow, married Ebenezer Crocker.
Along with her connection to Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow through his brother Kenelm Winslow, Katie has a direct line to Edward in another branch of her family tree.
Here is a photo of the Winslow-Crocker house located in Old Barnstable (Yarmouth Port), Massachusetts, now owned by Historic New England. I found a will which I am reviewing on the family and property, and will have more intel soon.
For this article, I am sharing images from the Zenas Crocker Collection, which is housed at the Sturgis Public Library in Barnstable.
The collection begins with Katie’s 5th great grandfather Zenas Crocker (1760-1807), who married Hannah Bourne (1766-1833) and built and lived in the home that is now the Cahoon Museum on Route 28 in Cotuit, Massachusetts. He hosted the first meeting to establish a library, known as the Second Social Library of Barnstable, in 1796.
This vast collection includes documents, maps, genealogy charts, and photographs – some dating back to early Plymouth.
Katie’s 3rd great grandfather, Zenas Crocker (1831-1898), son of Zenas and Rebecca Holly (Sampson) Crocker, married Susan Augusta Jones (1834-1914), one of the seven daughters of Nathaniel and Abigail (Fish) Jones of Vermont.
Below is a marriage record of the couple from a family Bible. It reads:
This certifies that the rite of holy matrimony was celebrated between Mr. Zenas Crocker Jr. of Barnstable, Mass., and Miss Susan A. Jones of Sandwich, Mass., on July 18th, 1861, at Sandwich, Mass., by Rev. A. P. Philbrook.
I found a death notice published in a Vermont newspaper for Zenas Crocker that mentions his sister-in-law Abby Amanda Jones (1836-1916), the second wife of John Leavitt Moses (1838-1914), son of Dearborn and Polly (Judkins) Moses.
The Sturgis Public Library also has in its collection a small diary of Susan Augusta (Jones) Crocker for the year 1880. In it she writes about the weather, daily happenings, cooking, cleaning, picking berries, and traveling to visit friends and family. The closing pages are an account of household purchases. The diary has been transcribed by Laurel Gabel.
Katie’s 2nd great grandfather Zenas Crocker (1864-1963), born to Zenas and Susan, worked for the Barnstable County Clerk. You can read an obituary for Zenas Crocker, who died on 19 February 1963 at the age of 99 in Centerville, Massachusetts, in Part 1.
He married Annie Jean McLean (1862-1920), daughter of Scottish immigrants Neil and Margaret (Thorn) McLean.
Below are two photo cards of Zenas, his wife Annie, and their first-born daughter Susie May Crocker (1865-1936), who married Willard Edson Nickerson (1888-1977), son of Claude Stanworth and Deborah Handy (Crowell) Nickerson.
Susie and Willard left descendants, including the well-known poet and newspaper correspondent Willard H. Nickerson, who died in Danvers, Massachusetts, on 26 February 2007.
Allied Families in the Crocker Line
The Hinckley family was connected to the Crocker family line. There are several photo cards and tintypes of the Hinckley family in the Sturgis Public Library collection, and I have already published some of these (which are in the links below).
Here is a photo of Alpheus Hinckley (1808-1893), son of David and Hannah (Marchant) Hinckley, who married Abigail Bumpus (1811-1850), daughter of Deacon Jeremiah and Hannah (Bourne) Bumpus.
Here are photos of Capt. Zenas Marston (1802-1885), son of Clement and Sarah (Adams) Marston, and his wife Mary Scudder (1804-1878), daughter of Isiah and Lydia (Ishman) Scudder.
I found a little anecdote on Zenas Marston in an article from the Herald by Sylvester Baxter entitled, “The Native Goes Back Again.”
Captain Zenas Marston was the brother of the celebrated eating house man [Captain Russell Marston]. His premises were maintained in super shipshape fashion and the envy of all who passed by. His great woodpile was so neatly stacked it created a perfect wall. Apparently, Zenas’ reputation for excessively high personal standards was well known by his crew, family, and friends. Today we would call it obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Stay tuned for more!
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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Related Articles:
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 1)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 2)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 3)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 4)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 5)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 6)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 7)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 8)
- 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 (part12)
- 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 (part4)
- Richard Bourne: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
- Thomas Tupper: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
