Stimson family history

STENZEN – STINSON – STIMSON – STIMPSON ALL THE SAME FAMILY NO MATTER HOW YOU SPELL IT

The story of the Stimson family in North America began in Boston, in 1653 with the arrival of twelve-yearoldGeorgeStimson.Georgewasaboybondservantof JamesCogswellJr,a Bostonresident who was returning from London. Master James died of a snake bite on the return voyage from London, leaving George with father James Cogswell Sr in Boston. Shortly after his arrival George’s indentureship was sold by Cogswell to Theodore Atkinson, himself a former indentured servant who had set up a hat business in Boston. After serving out his indentureship George moved up the coast to Ipswich, Massachusetts. In 1675 he was inducted into the Massachusetts Militia for service during King Phillip’s War. George was a member of Captain Appleton’s company and was badly wounded during the Great SwampFightinthewinterof1675. AfterrecoveringfromhiswoundsatMountHope,RhodeIsland George returned to Ipswich where he married Alice Phillips on 22 July 1676. Although Stimson family stories claim Alice was ‘a lady of some note and a zealous Puritan’ the identity of her parents remains unknown.Shemaywellhavebeenthe‘AgnesorAllis, daughterofCharlesPhillips’whowasbornin nearby Lynn in 1655.

A son Richard Stimson was born to George and Alice in 1678. Richard moved north to Wells, Maine sometime in the early 1700’s, where he married Mercy Littlefield in 1702. Mercy may have been the wife of the ‘Samson’ whose wife and infant child were killed by Indians in 1704 during Queen Anne’s War in one of the repeated Indian attacks on the Wells settlers. In 1708 Richard married Elizabeth Cole, orphaned daughter of William Cole and Abigail Wormwood, who were killed by Indians in 1695. That same year of 1708 saw the marriage of Elizabeth’s brother Samuel Cole to Richard’s sister Rebecca Stimson. Elizabeth and her brother Samuel Cole were raised in the household of Josiah Littlefield, brother of Richard’s first wife Mercy. Samuel Cole sold his sawmill in Wells after the end of the war when the Cole and Stimson families moved to nearby, more defensible Biddeford,Maine.

By 1717 Richard Stimson had been appointed as a surveyor at Biddeford. Massachusetts veterans of King Phillips War were granted nearby lands lying between the Saco and Penobscot rivers in Maine in 1734. Richard and Elizabeth settled on their share of the granted lands after son Ephraim was born in 1717. In 1743 Ephraim wed Mary Sands (b. abt 1726), a granddaughter of Patience Gibbens, who was in turn a granddaughter of James Gibbens and Judith Lewis. Judith’s father Thomas Lewis was a member of the Welsh gentry who had purchased part of the Saco, Maine land patent in 1630, taking possession in 1631. Ephraim and Mary had five children together, Richard, Ephraim (b. 1758), Molly, Sarah and Elizabeth.

Ephraim was the first to settle on the flanks of Mount Ephraim at what would become Searsport, Waldo County Maine, having moved there from Biddeford sometime before 1767. Richard and the younger Ephraim were members of the Massachusetts militia during the Revolutionary War . Ephraim was a member of the ill-fated Penobscot Expedition of 1779 where the Patriots were badly defeated by the British. Near the close of the war the younger Ephraim married Jane Swan of Peterborough, New Hampshire, the mother of his oldest son Jeremiah Stimson. Following Jane’s death Ephraim married Hannah Mathews of Prospect, Maine. Their children, including Mary (Mercy) and a third Ephraim were born in Prospect between 1797 and 1802. Following Hannah’s death, Ephraim

married his third wife, the widowed Catherine Staples of Prospect in 1804. Ephraim bought the island now known as Babbidge Island in the Fox Islands in 1808 and moved his family there in 1810. He drownedin1814 intheThorofarepassagebetweenNorthHavenandVinalhavenislands.

Around 1827 Mary Stimson wed Ebenezer Waterman Carver (b. 1801) who was living with his widowed mother Abigail Waterman on nearby Waterman’s Island (now Stimpsons Island). Ebenezer’s father was drowned before he was born, probably also in the Thorofare. Two daughters (Mary Deliah and Abigail) and two sons (John Waterman and Asher) were born to the family on Waterman’s Island. The family’s destiny changed forever with the 1838 arrival of Mormon missionary Wilford Woodruff who persuaded the Carver family to join other Fox Island families and follow him to the Mormon settlements in the Midwest.

After Mary died in Iowa in 1866, Ebenezer Waterman Carver wed Mary’s widowed niece Mary H. Cooper. This Mary was the daughter of 1st wife Mary’s brother, the 3rd Ephraim Stimpson. Ebenezer and his new family pulled up stakes and moved to the Rogue Valley of Orego n in 1867; accompanied by Ephraim and his family.

Richard Stimpson’s wife Alice Cole and brother-in-law Samuel Cole were orphaned when Thomas Cole and Abigail Wormwood were killed by Indians in 1695. Thomas was a grandson of William Cole and Elizabeth Doughty and a descendant of a number of the baronial families of the Welsh March. A lawsuit over her inheritance filed by Elizabeth against her brother Francis Doughty confirms her to be thedaughterofFrancis DoughtyandMargaretBarkerofHempstead,England.TheBarkerfamilyhas beenwellresearchedandcanbetracedbacktofeuding12th –14th centuryNormanMarcherbarons, including those of the de Caverhall and legendary FitzWarine and Peverel families.

ThePeverel’scanbetracedbacktoaPaganPeverelwho,accordingtoa13th centuryromance, Liber Memorandum Ecclesie de Barnemelle, was a standard bearer in the First Crusade for Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror. The same source tells a romantic story about one ‘William Peveril, a valiant knight, who. had two daughters, one of whom, Mellet, having privily resolved to marry none but a knight who should distinguish himself for his warlike prowess her farther sympathizing with her feelings determined to invite the noble youth of England generally to compete for such prize in a grand tournament. The castle of Whittington, in the county of Salop was also to reward the victor by way of a fitting dowry for the bride. We may judge of the hosts who would assemble at such an invitation and even royal blood was among them in the person of the Scottish King’s son. Worthy of the day, no doubt, were the feats performed. Among the combatants, one knight with a silver shield and a peacock for his crest speedily distinguished himself. The best a nd bravest in vain endeavoured to arrest his successful career. The Scottish prince was overthrown; so was a baron of Burgoyne. Their conqueror was adjudged the prize. Guarine de Meez, a branch of the house of Lorraine, and an ancestor of the lord Fitzwarren, thus wooed and won an English bride, at Peveril’s Place in the Peak .’ Less romantic historians speculate that the story was an invention for a reason explaining just how Warin de Metz managed to acquire his 1st cousin Mellet as a bride.

TheFitzWarinefamilyisthesubjectofthe14th centurymedievalromanceFoukeleFitzWaryn wherein the exploits of the outlawed Foulk FitzWarine III during the reign of King John are recounted. Elements of the romance parallel the later Robin Hood legend and make for fascinating reading.

The wife of the elder Ephraim Stimson was Mary Sands, a great-great-great granddaughter of gateway ancestors Thomas Lewis and Elizabeth Marshall. The Lewis family can also be traced back to the Welsh March and includes a number of Welsh ancestors such as the Coytmores and Mackworths , The Mackworths can be traced back past William ‘the Lion”, King of Scotland and includes links to Lady Godiva and Brian Boru of Ireland.

The Marshall family has been traced back through Elizabeth’s mother Katherine Mitton to Constance Beaumont. Constance descends from King Edward I of England and a veritable who’s who list of European Royal ancestors through the well-connected Beaumont and Sutton families. Truly a most noteworthylistofscoundrelsaswellasacoupleofsaints. Althoughintruththeirexploitspalein comparison to those of that boy bond servant who first set foot in Boston in 1653.

Historic Map of the Fox Islands showing where Ebenezer Waterman Carver and Mary Stimson were living before they were married.

Google Maps image of the Fox Islands showing Stimpsons (Waterman’s) Island where Ebenezer and his mother lived and Babbidge (Stimson’s) Island where Mary lived with her stepmother. Stimpson’s rock may have received its name from Ephraim’s drowning. I suspect that Ebenezer Carver probably drowned somewhere in the same general area.