Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 9)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry gives the 9th part in her series on Mayflower descendants that focuses on Katie Crocker and her family line, featuring an account book of the Crocker family which covers the years between 1790 and 1843. 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 Mayflower lines of the Crocker family who resided in Barnstable, Massachusetts. My research started months ago when Katie Crocker of Barnstable asked me to assist her with the family tree. Katie descends from several Mayflower passengers – John Howland, Henry Samson, and Stephen Hopkins are among them.

Recently I discovered an account book of the Crocker family which covers the years between 1790 and 1843. The names listed in the account book are residents, some of whom married into the Mashpee Wampanoags.

I contacted the Cahoon Museum in Cotuit, Massachusetts, where the account book is housed. With permission I have published a PDF of all the pages on Americana-Archives.org

Here is a page from the account book, settling the estate of Katie’s 5^th great grandfather Zenas Crocker, who died in 1807.

Some Background

Zenas was the son of Ebenezer Crocker Jr. and Zerviah Winslow. He married Hannah Bourne, daughter of Melatiah Bourne and Mary Howes.

The Crocker, Bourne, and allied families were noted friends and supporters of the local Indians. Some married into the lines.

Here is a photo of the Mashpee Wampanoag Museum, located at the Bourne-Avant House situated on Snake Pond Road, aka Main Street/Route 130, Mashpee, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The home was originally built in 1793 by Rev. Sherjashub Bourne, great grandson of Richard Bourne.

Zenas’s wife Hannah Bourne descended from Richard Bourne, aka “the White Sachem,” or “Little Father,” a missionary that the town of Bourne is named for. Bourne helped secure the Mashpee reservation land and a meeting house for the Indians. He mastered their language and taught them to read and write in both their native tongue as well as English.

Here is a photo of the Burying Hill Historical Marker in Bournedale, a village in the town of Bourne in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, commemorating that first Indian meeting house. This marker is on Herring Pond Road, south of Bournedale Road (U.S. Route 6).

This marker reads:

Burying Hill, site of the first meeting house for Indians in Plymouth Colony, established by Richard Bourne and Thomas Tupper soon after their settlement in Sandwich, 1637. By their influence, peace was preserved throughout the Cape during the perilous times of Indian warfare.

Bourne’s descendants followed suit. Here is an early newspaper clip on his great grandson Joseph Bourne, son of Judge Ezra Bourne and Martha Prince, who married Hannah Fuller. Joseph was ordained as pastor of the church in Mashpee, an Indian town on Cape Cod. Note that Joseph preached in the Indian language, like his great grandfather.

This article reported:

Mashpe[e] (an Indian Society in the County of Barnstable), Nov. 26, 1729.

This day was ordained Mr. Joseph Bourne, pastor of the Church here; the Elders convened and concerned on this occasion were the Rev. Mr. [Joseph] Lord of Chatham [son of Thomas Lord and Ann Rand, married Abigail Hinckley, daughter of Gov. Thomas Hinckley] and two Indian pastors from Martha’s Vineyard. The solemnity was opened with prayer by one of the Indian ministers. Then Mr. Bourne preached in the Indian language from 1 Tim 4:16: “Take heed unto thy self and into thy Doctrine, &c.” Then Mr. Lord preached in English from John 1:7: “The same came for a witness to hear witness of the Light, that all men thro’ him might believe”; who proceeded also to give the Charge. Then the other Indian pastor gave the Right Hand of Fellowship, and prayed; and the solemnity was concluded with singing, and the usual Benediction, both in Indian, the psalm appointed and the blessing pronounced by Mr. Bourne.

Here is a photo of the Gideon Hawley house, 4766 Falmouth Road, Barnstable, Massachusetts, built in c. 1758 by Rev. Gideon Hawley. He lived there until his death in 1807.

In 1758 Rev. Gideon Hawley was chosen for the same position as Joseph Bourne: pastor of the church in Mashpee. Gideon married Lucy Fessenden, and their daughter Rebecca Hawley married Crocker Sampson. Their daughter Rebecca Holly Sampson married Zenas Crocker, son of Zenas and Hannah (Bourne) Crocker.

Here is a newsclip announcing Rev. Hawley’s post as pastor.

This article reported:

We hear from Mashpee, a noted Indian town on the south of Sandwich, east of Barnstable, and north of Falmouth, on Cape Cod, that on Monday April 10th was installed a pastor of the Indian church there, the Rev. Mr. Gideon Hawley, a gentleman of liberal education, formerly ordain’d a minister among the Mohawks; with whom he preach’d and liv’d to great acceptance, till the French and Frenchified Indians in the present war render’d it too dangerous to stay there any longer than the year before last. Upon which the commissioners at Boston for propagating the Christian religion among the Indians sent him to Mashpee; where the Indians unanimously chose him their minster. The Rev. Mr. Hawley preach’d the sermon; the Rev. Mr. [Jonathan] Russell of Barnstable gave the Charge; the Rev. Mr. [Joseph] Green of Barnstable the Right Hand of Fellowship. The church was first gather’d there by the famous Mr. [John] Eliot and others, about 1670; and Mr. Richard Bourne of Sandwich, great-grandfather of the present Hon. Col. Sylvanus Bourne was then ordain’d their first pastor. It is suppos’d to be the largest town of Indians now in the Massachusetts.

To be continued…

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Note on the header image: the Old Indian Meeting House of the Wampanoag Tribe located at 410 Meetinghouse Road, Mashpee, Massachusetts. Credit: Mashpee Wampanoag Museum.

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)