Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 5)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry gives the fifth part in her series on Mayflower descendants that focuses on Katie Crocker and her family line. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I continue with my series “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” focusing on the lineage of the Crocker family who married into several Mayflower lines.

To recap: I am working with a client, Katie Crocker, daughter of James and Debra Sue (Pemberton) Crocker of Barnstable, Massachusetts, on her family tree. My last story covered Katie’s 10^th great grandparents John Gorham and Desire Howland, daughter of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley.

As noted in the previous story, Gorham was a joiner and two rare cradles that still survive, almost identical in structure, are believed to have been made by him.

The first is the Thatcher cradle located at the Crocker-Winslow home and featured in my previous story; the second is one originally owned by the Hinckley family, who intermarried into many old families including Thatcher. It is safe to say that both these cradles rocked many babes who grew up and became notable citizens.

The archival collections at the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts, hold some photographs of the cradle (such as the one above), as well as pictures of members of the Hinckley family, in a pamphlet entitled “Souvenirs of the Last Governor of Plymouth County.” Here is a portrait of Mercy Hinckley from that pamphlet.

Here is the page in the pamphlet accompanying the above portrait:

It reads:

Mercy Hinckley. Daughter of Thomas and Mary [Smith] Glover Hinckley [widow of Nathaniel Glover], his second wife, born in Barnstable July 31, 1662, married Samuel Prince of Sandwich 1686, his second wife. Her marriage does not appear of neither church nor town records of Barnstable.

This photograph is from the original portrait in possession of a descendant family [Charles H. Fiske] of Boston; and the original of the photograph of the cradle in which her infancy was rocked is still in possession of a family in a direct line of descent residing in Barnstable.

Note: A portrait of Mercy’s husband Samuel Prince can be found in Noyes-Gilman Ancestry on page 309.

Katie’s 8^th great grandmother was Melatiah Hinckley Crocker, sister to Mercy.

Here is another photograph of the Hinckley family cradle taken by historian Gustavus Adolphus Hinckley (1822-1905) at his family home in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Gustavus was the son of Josiah Hinckley and Mercy Crocker Estabrook and a direct descendant of John Gorham and Desire Howland. His lineage includes Mayflower passengers William Brewster, John Howland, and Elizabeth Tilley.

Presently the Hinckley family cradle has a place of prominence in a Massachusetts home. It appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of Antiques & Fine Art Magazine in the article “Spectacular Vernacular,” authored by Peter Eaton, antique dealer specializing in seventeenth and eighteenth-century furniture and decorative arts.

In 1829 the Nantucket Inquirer reported that a monument was made for the resting place of Thomas Hinckley (1620-1706), who was “a character too respectable to be altogether forgotten” and the “Pilgrim father, and benefactor of our early institutions.” Hinckley left many descendants who married Mayflower scions and can claim their membership into the Mayflower Society, including Katie Crocker.

The slab cover on the Hinckley monument has an inscription that reads:

Beneath this stone,
Erected AD 1829,
Are deposited the mortal remains of
Thomas Hinckley.
He died AD 1706, aged 85 years.
History bears witness to his piety,
usefulness and agency
in the public transactions of his time.
The important offices he was called to fill
evidence the esteem in which he was held
by the people.
He was successively elected an assistant in
the government of Plymouth Colony
from 1658 to 1681; and
Governor
except during the interruption
by
Sir Edmund Andross,
from 1681 to the
junction of Plymouth with Massachusetts
in 1692.

Famous kin in the Hinckley family line: Col. Robert Gould Shaw, George Bush, Bette Davis, J. P. Morgan, and Endicott Peabody.

I found another Mayflower connection in Katie’s tree! Her 12^th great grandfather is Mayflower passenger William Brewster, senior elder and the leader of Plymouth Colony. She is descended from his daughter Patience, who married Thomas Prence, a governor of Plymouth Colony.

This line includes Nathaniel Mayo, Richard Knowles, Mary Hamilton, Hezekiah Doane, Lorenzo Cahoon, Oliver Arey, John French, and the Zaccheus Gould line going back to Topsfield. Much more on that in the next story.

Plymouth has many historical markers to honor William Brewster. Among them is one above the cornerstone for the 1914 Post Office building.

Here is the skinny published in the Springfield Republican in 1909.

This article reported:

A historic site has been chosen by the Treasury Department at Washington for the post-office building to be erected at Plymouth. It is the Baptist Church property at the corner of Leydon and Main Streets. These are said to be the oldest thoroughfares in the United States, having been laid out in 1620, and the lot selected for the site was originally assigned to William Brewster, the “ruling elder” of the Pilgrim Church. On this spot Brewster lived and disseminated that religious liberty which distinguishes the United States among the nations of the world. Gov. [Wiliam] Bradford’s house was on the opposite corner and at the head of the street in Town Square.

To conclude, here are two publications – authored by our subjects today – that represented Harvard at the St. Louis Fair in 1904:

• The Hinckley Papers, which consist of the letters and papers of Thomas Hinckley when he was governor of the Plymouth Colony from 1676-1689.
• Thomas Prince’s Chronological History of New England, in the form of annals (edited by Nathan Hale) which extend from the adventures of Captain Gosnold in 1602 down to 1730.

The Boston Journal reported on this under the headline “Harvard at the St. Louis Fair,” with the subhead “Many of Great Writers of America Claim Harvard as Their Alma Mater.”

Stay tuned!

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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)